Relational Understanding vs Instrumental Understanding
A large topic of discussion in education is the type of teaching style that should be incorporated into the classroom; more specifically, if teachers should be teaching for instrumental or relational understanding. Relational and instrumental understanding can be described as two different types of ways students learn. Relational understanding refers to students both knowing what to do and why you’re doing it, whereas instrumental is more procedural in a sense that the student will know how to get the answer, but lack the conceptual understanding. As a prospective teacher, this topic is extremely important to keep in mind when developing my own teaching style. Ultimately, I’m in favor of teaching for relational understanding; however, I do believe there are instances where instrumental may be beneficial. This may arise when teaching certain courses/subjects where teaching relationally may take an unreasonable amount of time or if the information for relational is too complex it may only cause more confusion. However, instrumental learning equates to trying to learn math as if it were a simple collection of formulas and rules that can become memorized and repeated. This becomes unfortunate and will inevitably lead to a lack of understanding which can have several effects on future learning. Thus, I’m in favor of relational teaching which provides for the adaptability to new tasks serves as an important factor for future learning. There are many examples to be aware of when strictly teaching instrumentally or relationally, which are described in the article below by Richard Skemp. Skemp’s article invites teachers to challenge which type of teaching should be applied to our education system. In addition, it is important to critically think about the advantages and disadvantages of both and take these into consideration while developing our own teaching styles.
Please feel free to leave comments on your thoughts/opinions regarding this topic.