When I think about design choices they may not consider everything that you all do as experienced educators. again indicating an action as opposed to a math definition. It has text by the button, and that text says 'solve'. I am looking at my TI83 that I've had for almost a decade now and it has only an 'enter' button. This is why I believe the equal sign has been removed from this calculator.Īnyone else in the community have ideas about why the equal sign has been removed? As we move to more algebraic reasoning, understanding the proper meaning of '=' will be important. Therefore the problem could be re-written: It would be better to use a different type of symbol, perhaps an 'if and only if' which looks something like (this is best I could do since Math Symbols aren't currently available on this text page). This is VERY confusing and incorrect because equality is transitive, a = b and b = c, then a = c, but in the above example x does not equat x + 5. This is what I have seen in my classroom regarding the equal sign: Whereas, the word ENTER means 'to do something'.

By removing the symbol, it should allow us, practitioners, to talk and teach about equivalence and help learners to understand that when they see the '=' it doesn't mean 'do something' it means 'I am the same as'.

The majority of learners already think that the equal sign ('=') means 'to do something' or 'the next step is'. Here is a picture of the new calculator and Dorothea is correct there isn't an '=' sign on the faceplate.

Ti smartview online calculator