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Submitted by:
Carol Nauman
High School Mathematics Teacher and Math Team Coach
Byron High School
Byron, Illinois
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"I honestly think one of the biggest obstacles facing parents is the lack of knowledge of what graphing calculator to buy their child. They don't want to make the wrong purchase. I try to take the guess-work out of it for them.
For the past ten years I have sent a letter to all 8th grade parents encouraging them to purchase their graphing calculator through the high school math team and recommending the newest TI graphing calculator. I do this strictly as a courtesy to my students and their parents.
We charge a couple of dollars over the discounted price from the dealer - still less than the retail store price our students would pay - and use this money for our math team. This arrangement also allows us to submit the proof of purchase and receive free TI technology for the math department through TI's Volume Purchase Program (VPP). We also give parents the option to pay for a graphing calculator in two installments.
With this approach, everyone wins: the students get the right calculator in their hands; the parents know they are buying the right calculator; the math department and math team gain more instructional technology. The math teacher wins as well, because every student gets a graphing calculator to use both in the classroom and at home.
One other tip: To keep track of everyone's graphing calculator and help prevent theft, I have the mathematics department engrave each calculator with the student's name and we save each calculator's ID number in a spreadsheet."
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| A mathematics educator for 32 years, Carol Nauman has been teaching with TI calculators since 1982. She currently teaches Accelerated Algebra 2, Algebra 2 and Precalculus for grades 10 through 12.
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