- Relational Understanding, and
- Instrumental Understanding.
They are both types of understanding, and both aim for the learner to answer a set of problems. Furthermore, Relational understanding seems to encompass Instrumental understanding in that when one understands the 'why' of something, then the ability to do it and therefore 'how to' do it will also be present.
However, they are opposed in their methods. Relational understanding is both easier to remember and more adaptable to new tasks but it is more difficult and takes more time to achieve. While Instrumental understanding has more immediate rewards and gives answers more quickly than a relational mode would; however, it is also more superficial and more rules must be added for more scenarios.
Therefore, as an advocate of Relational understanding I believe that through the old adage, "practice makes perfect" explaining why something is the way it is to a student several times is preferred to a simple, single explanation or rule for how to do the same thing.
Kyle,
ReplyDeleteOne thing I liked about your post was how you kept Skemp's thoughts simple, and yet substantial enough for me to understand all the arguments from his article. I also like how you ended by throwing in your personal opinion to his thoughts. As a reader, I love seeing that from an author. One thing that I noticed was that the post was that it was not in a true paragraph format. One thing that helps me when I am reading something is that the topic sentence of the paragraph shows the angle that an author is going to take on something. For me, a strong topic sentence for a paragraph, like Dr. Siebert, talked about helps me understand what an author, like yourself, is trying to say.
Thanks for your post!
The only thing I got lost for a moment on was the initial definition you had for relational understanding. It seemed at first that relational and instrumental understanding were mutually exclusive, however, in the next paragraph you brought it back together to show that instrumental understanding is embedded within relational understanding.
ReplyDeleteYou found strong arguments from Skemps article on the major differences between relational and instrumental understanding. I really like that you included those because even though one is "within" the other, they really have different effects on the student.
Great Summary!!
Haley Bly
I really like the way you described the two types of understandings. It was set up in a very clear manner. I also thought the advantages and disadvantages of both were very clear and accurately reflected Skemp's writing.
ReplyDeleteI think that when you say relational understanding encompasses an instrumental understanding, the way in which the two are related is very clear. But for relational, when you explain that when the 'why' is present then the 'how to' do it will also be present, I feel as though this might be a little inconsistent with how the two are related. For a relational understanding, I don't think we can say that if you know why, then you will know how. I think a relational understanding is just knowing both how and why, but isn't necessarily the case that just knowing 'the why' implies that you know 'the how'. Other than this, I thought it was all very clear and good.
I think you do a good job at expounding on the ideas of relational and instrumental understanding. I like how you added in your opinion and aligned it with what I believe Skemp was trying to explain. I did not quite understand your initial definitions of the two types of understanding. I also did not see the outline of the paragraph in the topic sentence. Thank you for your thoughts.
ReplyDeleteI really liked the simplicity of your writing. It was easy to follow, and I think you did a nice job of capturing the pros and cons that Skemp identified for the two types of understanding.
ReplyDeleteThe structure of the response, however, did not fit the format of the assignment. While the format you used is appropriate for a blog entry, I hoped that you would follow the norms for academic writing and written your response in paragraph form, including a topic sentence that informed your reader of the main point of the response. I encourage you in the future to follow the outline of the assignment more closely, because this is the type of writing that I want you to master. Feel free, however, to include additional blog entries that use your own format and address your own interests!
I really like how you explained that instrumental understanding is encompassed by relational understanding, but I don't completely agree with you on the point that they oppose eachother. I think they are just different ways of teaching that combined can help to be more effective.
ReplyDeleteI think you did a great job explaining the meaning of both types of understanding, and your definitions seem to portray what skemp was trying to say. Instrumental is definitely a part of relational. I would like to see a little more of the positive side of instrumental understanding, but overall, well done!
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