Dogma vs Freedom, Instrumental Undersstanding vs Relational Understanding

 Dogma vs. Freedom

Relational Understanding and Instrumental Understanding

My daughter doing math in the kitchen

This could sound very strong regarding the learning process, but after reading the article, I correlated Instrumental understanding with the prison of living surrounded by dogmatic principles. The only advantages of this kind of understanding would be the faith that the pupils would have in the system. On the other hand, Relational understanding is related to a state of internal reflection about the way we learn new things and maintaining an open approach to the unknown.

These different approaches have their own benefits and disadvantages, as the reading explains.  Instrumental Understanding of Mathematics can provide the student with faux confidence based on the practical procedures learnt, but once the conditions or the framework rules change, the pupil would feel lost and disoriented, as in the town map example. Relational understanding would demand that the student leave the comfort zone of certainty and explore different ways to understand. This will take more time and cross feelings, but from a life perspective, the skills acquired will be transferable to other subjects and real-life problems.

As a teacher, I want to be able to be part of the autonomy building of the students, and I think that requires getting out of my comfort zone and becoming creative and efficient in my lesson planning in order to maintain a relational understanding through the Math learning journey.