Reply to Skemp Discussion Comments

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 Reply to Jacob's group's response to question 1).

The question:

1) What 'should' come first in learning math: instrumental or relational understanding? Why? In what contexts?

Jacob's Group's Response:

1) We felt that there were pros and cons to both systems, but ideally the system would integrate relational and instrumental understanding together so that students both developed deep understanding for a subject alongside technical skills. Whitehead's theory of Romance, Precision, Generalization was discussed, focusing on making every lesson a combination of relational and instrumental.

My reply:

Hi Jacob,

I very much agree with your group about the idea of integrating relational and instrumental understanding. I think instrumental understanding is practical in helping students to have efficient strategies to attack common problems. On the other hand, relational understanding will help to stimulate enjoyment of the subject and help students develop transferable skills of logical and creative thinking. I think that this relates well to your second point and it is important for us as math teachers to realize that not all of our students will go on to use specific math techniques in their future studies or careers, but they will almost certainly benefit from logical and critical thinking abilities, as you say.

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