SKEMP THEORIES

How the theories can apply in

mathematics learning?
 
Richard
Skemp
Was born on
March 10, 1919
– and died on
June 22, 1995
Definition Of Skemp Theories
Producing both theories of learning, including
Intelligence, Learning and Action (Wiley, 1979) and
corresponding practical curriculum materials such as
Understanding Mathematics at secondary level and
Mathematics in the Primary School.
Richard Skemp Idea’s
Mathematics, like music, needs to be expressed in
physical actions and human interactions before its
symbols can evoke the silent patterns of mathematical
ideas (like musical notes), simultaneous relationships
(like harmonies) and expositions of proofs (like
melodies).
The silent music of mathematics, likening the learning
of mathematics to the learning of music — as a lived
and shared aural and performance experience, versus a
far more passive, isolated pencil-and-paper experience.
Skemp comments that some composers can read a
printed musical score, or write one by hand, and
HEAR the musical sounds that are captured or
expressed in the notation. Most lesser mortals need to
have the music performed to know what the ball-and-
stick ink on-paper means. It is, as Skemp argues,
convincingly as always, similar with mathematics:
In the meantime, teachers and researchers will
continue to work outside students’ brains, using words,
images and actions to stimulate students’ mathematical
thinking, while watching and listening to student
speech, writing, drawing and other actions.
The real learning that happens in the students’ brains
can at best only be inferred – in common sense ways
as well as in Skempian, and other, psychological
approaches – from external observations.
Skemp’s expressing the essence of ideas in simple language.
“it is easy to make simple things difficult but difficult
to make hard things easy.”
“teaches the product of mathematical thought, not the
process of mathematical thinking.”
How we can apply this theories in learning
Mathematics
Mathematics as Problem Solving
1. The Skemp learning activities are, themselves,
problem-solving tasks.
2. The students are led to construct mathematical concepts
and relationships from physical experiences designed to
appeal to their imagination and to build on their real-
world experiences.
3. Students work cooperatively on well-designed, goal-
directed tasks, making predictions, testing hypotheses
and building relational understandings that facilitate
routine and non-routine problem solving
Mathematics as Communication.
1. The Skemp learning activities are designed to foster
communication about mathematical concepts between
students and between students and adults.
The place value concepts with physical embodiments,
spoken/heard symbols, and written/read symbols, all
the while exploring the underlying mathematical
meanings and using problem solving strategies to
predict their best move.
Mathematics as Reasoning
1. Using patterns and relationships to make sense out of
situations is an integral component of the Skemp
learning activities.
2. The activities frequently lead the students to explore,
conjecture (make predictions), and test their
conjectures.
3. The program builds on relational understanding.
Useful instrumental (habit) learning is promoted
when appropriate.
Mathematical Connections
1. Teacher arrange the activities in optimal learning sequences and provide teachers
with the framework to make relational connections within and across networks. Many
of the activities require assembling previously learned concepts and processes to deal
with the task at hand. An entire network (NuSp 1, The number track and the
number line) is devoted to number tracks and number lines, which are of importance
throughout mathematics, from kindergarten through university-level mathematics, and
beyond. They provide valuable support for our thinking about numbers in the form of
a pictorial representation. Skemp's unerring notions about contexts that appeal to
student imaginations have produced interesting lifelike settings in which the students
learn. They compare possible outcomes of the moves they might make in One tonne
van drivers (Num 3.10/3), and they are introduced to a budgeting activity in
Catalogue shopping (Num 3.10/4). In adult life, planning the use of money and other
resources (e.g., time, labour) is one of the major uses of arithmetic. Because of
interesting real life situations, connections to other curriculum areas are easily
integrated. Feeding the animals (Num 7.2/1) and Setting the table (Num 4.5/2, SAIL
Volume 1) are examples of activities which have spin-offs to art and health