Calculators for evaluating fractions

The use of the calculator stands in the way of understanding in maths. In the days before calculators became common the divide symbol was practically unused, everyone wrote a division as a fraction. This is vital if pupils are to understand what the calculation is doing. Use of the calculator hides the method and process of division from the pupil, denying them understanding of what they’re doing. In my teaching I had a number of able pupils give me an answer of “4.99” to a particular question I had set. The right answer was “5”. This led to much complaint when I marked them wrong. Had the pupils written the problem as a fraction, they would have been able to cancel out numbers top and bottom. This would have left them with the correct answer without having to do any calculation at all. They could have solved the problem with a few strokes of their pen, in less time than it took them to type the numbers into their calculator, and without rounding errors.