Plotting calculators in group teaching

Purdue University entered into a study with Hewlett Packard in 1990 to determine if calculators could help high risk students in their battle with calculus. The use of plotting calculators within the Counselor-Tutorial (CT) program has been very successful. Individuals with a much lower incoming academic background are able to compete with individuals with a much higher incoming standard. The effective integration of the graphical and numerical solve features of the plotting calculator appears to be beneficial in helping students to establish for themselves important visual and numerical connections to the analytic presentations that are characteristic of most text books