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From: keho@quads.uchicago.edu (thomas david kehoe)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp,sci.math
Subject: Teaching math with HP calculators
Message-ID: <1990Dec11.012425.7739@midway.uchicago.edu>
Date: 11 Dec 90 01:24:25 GMT
Sender: news@midway.uchicago.edu (News Administrator)
Organization: University of Chicago
Lines: 31

I'm hoping to get a summer job with Hewlett-Packard, and
I'm thinking of writing to them with some ideas for
marketing their 48SX and 28S calculators.  (I'm working
on an MBA at the University of Chicago; the 48SX and 28S
sell for about $300 and $200 respectively, and do calculus,
algebra, graphing, and about 2000 other things.)

The main idea is to develop textbooks for teaching calculus,
college algebra, trig, etc., with the calculators.  I remember
these courses as being long on the mechanics of the chain rule,
Gauss-Jordan elimination, etc., and short on solving word
problems.  With the HP calculators (or computer-based applications),
a course could quickly cover the mechanics and get on to setting
up and solving word problems.  Plus, the graphing functions
would also make the concepts easier to understand.

Could someone tell me whether there are already courses like
this?  Do they work well?  Do instructors like to offer them?
Are they using Macintosh applications, or HP calculators, or
what?  Are there textbooks?

My other idea was just to sell a funny poster about calculus
in college bookstores.  Maybe commission Gary Larsen to do
a "Far Side" about calculus.  (I remember the National Lampoon
poster of a woman on a beach saying "I love men who know
calculus".)  Then the back of the poster would have photos
of the 48SX and 28S, with copy about how they do calculus.
--
"Why my thoughts are my own, when they are in, but when they are out
they are another's." - Susanna Martin, executed for witchcraft, 1681.
Dave Kehoe  keho@midway.uchicago.edu  (312) 753-0119