Write about
·
three
things that made you “stop” as you read this piece, and why
·
where
you stand on the issue Skemp raises, and why.
When I started
reading the article “Relational Understanding and Instrumental Understanding” by
Richard Skemp, the first point which came to my attention was what the word “Faux
amis” have to do with mathematics and why he was translating some French words into English.
This was a very good scenario to introduce the topic rather than just giving
the definition of relational and instrumental understanding. Also, when I read
about the two terms and without reading the article completely, I started
thinking about the activity we did yesterday in our Math class. Our first
lesson was relational understanding where we had visual understanding of
geometry. Moreover, it was surprising to see the important point Skemp made
about teachers, “At present most teachers have to learn from their own mistakes”.
The teacher is not the only one who will deliver knowledge to the classroom. We
all learn from our own mistake and we also learn from students as they may have
different thoughts and ideas.
Both methods have advantages
and disadvantages but I don’t think that you can avoid one of them. As a future
teacher, I will use both methods and it will all depend on the topic I will
teach. Mathematics is not only about formulas and problem-solving but the logic
behind it and how you can explore your ideas.
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