Skemp Reading Reflections

 The first thing which interests me is the differences between the Instrumental Understanding and Relational Understanding. Instrumental Understanding is only knowing how to do a problem while relational understanding is learning why it works. In learning mathematics, even among University courses, many students only have instrumental understanding because there is simply too much concepts to cover and there isn't enough time. What caught my attention is why instrumental understanding is commonly taught. Skemp mentions that Instrumental Understanding is commonly taught because it is often easier and faster for students to grasp initially. It provides immediate rewards for a struggling student's confidence. Moreover, in specific, isolated scenarios, instrumental understanding can be a faster way to get a reliable answer. Instrumental learning taught you how you do it instead of why you do it. However, Skemps also says the benefits to Relational Understanding because it provides long term benefits. Despite taking longer to learn, Students can adapt the knowledge that they learn to solve new problems. These newly learned concepts would often connect together like a web instead of isolated parts. 

Although I agree with Skemps that relational understanding is much more benefitial in the long term than instrumental understanding, I don't see that implementing Relational understanding is as urgent or necessary to replace instrumental understanding. The use of intermediate to advance mathematical concepts in daliy life wasn't as prominent for someone not pursuing a job in mathematics, statistics, engineering, or finances. Most people don't require an in-depth understanding of Mathematics. Understanding the exact theories behind a mathematical theorems wasn't really necessary. Hence, I believe the urgency to implement relational understanding is that high.