1. Are the two kinds of understanding distinct/separatable?
Yes they are distinct, one being relational and the other being instrumental.
2. Is there a best “order” to teach them”?
Teaching relational first, then teaching instrumental is the best order. It’s difficult to teach an open-ended, exploratory form of mathematics after narrowing their minds through procedural, instrumental understanding.
3. What kinds of activities promote each one?
Relational
• Group activities
• Discussions
• Visual breakdowns of math concepts
Instrumental
• Textbook questions
• Lecture, note-taking
• List of formulas and applications
4. How to assess understanding?
Typical tests and quizzes with knowledge, thinking, application questions are good ways to test instrumental understanding. Being given a question, answer and then asking students how they know the answer is correct may be a good way to test relational understanding.
No comments:
Post a Comment