You know, remember the abacus.
All of the training I received in GA, was pedagogical. It was mainly teacher centered with the learner being a passive receiver. Information flowed one way and all the learning activities in the class room were rigid sequences.
Adults, (usually socially accepted as 18+ give or take a few years in some), learn in a completely different way. In fact it has been proven that some children learn in an andragogical learning environment.
Adults learn best when new information is linked to past experience, we all know that. But adults also like to take part in the learning path and have some form of input into the sequence.
If a student presents with a calculator, so be it. This is a result of the present. They are widely used in schools and kids grow up with them. If you want to ween them off, do so nicely. There is absolutely no need to throw the thing in the hat shelf and tell the student off. Perhaps show them the mental arithmetic techniques as the present themselves.
Some of the rhetoric on here regarding a students inability to calculate simple sums, just tells me the instructor has no patience for the job at hand.
Last edited by Zoomy; 1st Jan 2013 at 06:18.