LEARNING MATHEMATICS WITH UNDERSTANDING

This Paper Arranging to Fulfill Group Task of

THE BASICS OF MATHEMATICS LEARNING PROCESS 1

Lecturer:
Dr. Mohammad Asikin, M.pd.

Written by:

Indra Dana Wahyudi (4101415003)

Ahmad Zakaria (4101415009)
Setyo Irawan (4101415016)
Rechika A (4101415023)
Kusuma Fitriyana (4101415063)

MATHEMATICS DEPARTMENT
MATHEMATICS AND NATURAL SCIENCES FACULTY
SEMARANG STATE UNIVERSITY
2017
 Abstract
Mathematics is the main subject that students learn from elementary school. Math is not
about counting numbers. But that's one subject that will make students have logical thinking,
critical thinking and reasoned. The subjects of mathematics have abstract properties so that a
good concept of understanding is required. Students must learn math with understanding.
According to Shaw, concepts are the building blocks, or foundations, on wich more complex
ideas are establish. It means. the concept is the foundation or the basic building of the complex
ideas it composes. The concept is the basis for a high-level thinking process or it can be
interpreted that students who understand the concept well will be more able to generalize and
transfer their knowledge than students who merely memorize the definition. They will be able to
recognize the importance of reflecting on their thinking and learning from their mistakes.
Students become competent and confident in their ability to cope with difficult problems and are
willing to persevere as tasks become challenges. Understanding learning can be further enhanced
by the application of conceptual understanding and procedural knowledge. Mathematical
understanding skills can be developed through problem solving, reasoning, and argumentation.
Keywords: learning mathematics, conceptual understanding, procedural knowledge

Introduction
Mathematics is a science that has been studied ranging from kindergarten, elementary,
junior high school to high school. But most students still think that mathematics is difficult, not
least among them avoiding mathematics lessons, whereas mathematics is a very important
science for everyday life, even to be able to move on to a higher level of understanding in
mathematics is one of the main prerequisites. Long enough, school math generally tend to put
mathematics as a ready-made tool and ignore mathematics as a human activity (Soedjadi, 2007:
7), so it is possible for students to simply memorize without understanding, but should be able to
memorize only after understanding, consequently the students feel always difficult in understand
math. Therefore, students should be given the widest opportunity to build their own knowledge
of understanding concepts in mathematics through the previous knowledge they have learned so
that the process of student understanding is always evolving continuously, and students should be
invited to directly experience how the activities of mathematics in everyday life -day in order to
interpret the benefits of mathematics in life.
According to Piaget, learning activities are active activities, where students build their own
knowledge through previous knowledge (Paul Suparno, 1997: 33). This implies that the study of
mathematics conceived understanding of concepts in a coherent and continuous fashion, since
the mathematical concepts of one another are interrelated, resulting in that the mathematical
solution requires the student to understand the previous concept. Based on this, it can be
concluded that the concept of understanding for students is very important role in learning
mathematics.
Understanding of mathematical concepts is one of the learning objectives in school. NCTM
(2000) states that the vision of school mathematics is based on students' mathematical learning
accompanied by understanding. Bransford, Brown, and Cocking (NCTM, 2000) describes
learning mathematics with understanding is also the most important component of ability, along
with factual and procedural knowledge skills. Studying mathematics with understanding is
necessary to enable students to solve other problems they will face in the future.
Learning mathematics with understanding has increasingly received attention from
mathematics educators and psychologists and has progressively been elevated to one of the most
important goals of the mathematical education of all students, the realization of this goal has long
been problematic. Many factors might account for this, such as teachers’ knowledge and
pedagogy, the curriculum. This article has been motivated by the increased value assigned
nowadays to learning mathematics with understanding as a principal instructional goal for all
students and by the high potential of the Standards to influence curriculum development.
Learning mathematics with understanding is the heart of this paper. Our primary goal in
this article is to consider critically about meaningful learning in school mathematics that is
elaborated in the Learning Principle (LP).The article is structured into three sections. In the first
section we will discuss about the vision of Principles and Standard based on students learning
mathematics with understanding. The second section we will discuss about conceptual
understanding which allows students to use their knowledge flexibly and solve new problems.
The last is about the relation between conceptual and procedural knowledge of learning with
understanding in mathematics.
 Content
The vision of Principles and Standards is based on students learning mathematics
with understanding.
The vision of school mathematics in Principles and Standards is based on students’
learning mathematics with understanding. In fact, learning without understanding has been a
persistent problem since at least the 1930s, and it has been the subject of much discussion and
research by psychologists and educators over the years. In the twenty-first century, all students
should be expected to understand and be able to apply mathematics.
Students who memorize facts or procedures without understanding often are not sure when
or how to use what they know, and such learning is often quite fragile. But learning with
understanding will make learning easier. Because mathematics makes more sense and is easier to
remember and to apply when students connect new knowledge to existing knowledge in
meaningful ways. Conceptual understanding is an essential component of the knowledge needed
to deal with novel problems and settings. Now, most of the arithmetic and algebraic procedures
long viewed as the heart of the school mathematics curriculum can now be performed with
handheld calculators. Thus, more attention can be given to understanding the number concepts
and the modeling procedures used in solving problems.
When students learning mathematics with understanding, they will be confident in their
ability to tackle difficult problems, eager to figure things out on their own, flexible in exploring
mathematical ideas and trying alternative solution paths, and willing to persevere. Students
should view the difficulty of complex mathematical investigations as a worthwhile challenge
rather than as an excuse to give up.
Learning with understanding can be further enhanced by classroom interactions, as student
propose mathematical ideas and conjectures, learn to evaluate their own thinking and that of
others, and develop mathematical reasoning skills. Moreover, in such settings, procedural
fluency and conceptual understanding can be developed through problem solving, reasoning, and
argumentation.
Conceptual Understanding
In recent decades, psychological and educational research on the learning of complex
subjects such as mathematics has solidly established the important role of conceptual
understanding in the knowledge and activity of persons who are proficient. Being proficient in a
complex domain such as mathematics entails the ability to use knowledge flexibly, applying
what is learned in one setting appropriately in another. One of the most robust findings of
research is that conceptual understanding is an important component of proficiency, along with
factual knowledge and procedural facility.
For decades, the major emphasis in school mathematics was on procedural knowledge,or
what is now referred to as procedural fluency. Rote learning was the norm, with little attention
paid to understanding of mathematical concepts. Rote learning is not the answer in mathematics,
especially when students do not understand the mathematics. Inrecent years, major efforts have
been made to focus on what is necessary for students to learn mathematics, what it means for a
student to be mathematically proficient.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (2003) delineates specifically what
mathematical abilities are measured by the nationwide testing program in its document. Those
abilities include conceptual understanding, procedural knowledge, and problem solving. Students
demonstrate conceptual understanding in mathematics when they provide evidence that they can
recognize, label, and generate examples of concepts; use and interrelate models, diagrams,
manipulatives, and varied representations of concepts; identify and apply principles; know and
apply facts and definitions; compare, contrast, and integrate related concepts and principles;
recognize, interpret, and apply the signs, symbols, and terms used to represent concepts.
Conceptual understanding reflects a student's ability to reason in cases involving the careful
application of concept definitions, relations, or representations of either. To assist our students in
gaining conceptual understanding of the mathematics they are learning requires a great deal of
work, using our classroom resources (textbook, supplementary materials, and manipulatives) in
ways for which we possibly were nottrained. Here are some examples that shed light on what
conceptual understanding might involve in the classroom.
• In grades 5 through 6, operations with decimals are common topics. "What is 6.345 x
5.28?" A student has conceptual understanding of the mathematics when he or she can
explain that 335.016 cannot possibly be the correct product since one factor is greater
than 6 and less than 7, while the second factor is greater than 5 and less than 6; therefore,
the product must be between 30 and 42.
• In grade 6, fractions, decimals, and percents are integrated in problem situations. "What
is 25% of 88?" Rather than multiplying .25 x 88, conceptual understanding of this
 problem might include "25% is the same as 1/4, and 1/4 of 88 is 22." Concepts are
integrated to find the answer.
• In grades 4 through 6, measurement of circles is started and extended. Critical to
conceptual understanding of both perimeter and area is the understanding of π. The
answer to the question "What is π?" gives teachers a very good measure of student
understanding. "π is equal to 3.14, or 22/7" lacks student understanding. "π is the ratio of
the circumference of a circle to its diameter, and is approximately 3.14" shows conceptual
understanding.
• In grades 3 through 6, functional relationships become critical for future work inalgebra.
"One 4-leaf clover has 4 leaves, two 4-leaf clovers have 8 leaves. Howmany leaves do
fifteen 4-leaf clovers have?" A student with conceptualunderstanding of this problem
might do a couple of things to explain the answer."First, I can make a table and then look
for a pattern. I can extend the pattern tofind the answer for 15 clovers. Maybe, I can find
a rule that will help me get theanswer." "8 is 2 x 4; 12 is 3 x 4; 16 is 4 x 4. Therefore, if I
have 15 clovers, there must be15 x 4 = 60 leaves."
Getting students to use manipulative to model concepts, and then verbalize their results,
assists them in understanding abstract ideas. Getting students to show different representations of
the same mathematical situation is important for this understanding to take place. Getting
students to use prior knowledge to generate new knowledge, and to use that new knowledge to
solve problems in unfamiliar situations is also crucial for conceptual understanding. As noted by
the National Research Council (2001), when students have conceptual understanding of the
mathematics they have learned, they "avoid many critical errors in solving problems, particularly
errors of magnitude." Getting students to see connections between the mathematics they are
learning and what they already know also aids them in conceptual understanding.
Teachers of mathematics must create opportunities for students to communicate
theirconceptual understanding of topics. This may involve lesson structures that require achange
in pedagogical techniques. Ideas for supporting students in developing conceptual
understandingof their mathematics must be provided in resources for teachers.
Procedural Knowledge
Procedure is a series of steps, or actions, done to accomplish a goal. For example,
‘Procedural knowledge … is ‘knowing how’, or the knowledge of the steps required to attain
various goals. Procedures have been characterized using such constructs as skills, strategies,
productions, and interiorized actions’. The procedures can be (1) algorithms—a predetermined
sequence of actions that will lead to the correct answer when executed correctly, or (2) possible
actions that must be sequenced appropriately to solve a given problem (e.g. equation-solving
steps). This knowledge develops through problem-solving practice.
Within psychology, particularly in computational models, there has sometimes been the
additional constraint that procedural knowledge is implicit knowledge that cannot be verbalized
directly because the models are often of procedural knowledge that has been automatized
through extensive practice. However, at least in mathematical problem solving, people often
know and use procedures that are not automatized, but rather require conscious selection,
reflection, and sequencing of steps (e.g. solving complex algebraic equations), and this
knowledge of procedures can be verbalized. Overall, there is a general consensus that procedural
knowledge is the ability to execute action sequences (i.e. procedures) to solve problems.
Relations Between Conceptual and Procedural Knowledge
To study the relations between conceptual and procedural knowledge, it is important to
assess the two independently. However, it is important to recognize that it is difficult for an item
to measure one type of knowledge to the exclusion of the other. There have been four different
theoretical viewpoints on the causal relations between conceptual and procedural knowledge, i.e:
that children initially acquire conceptual knowledge, children first learn procedures, and that
conceptual and procedural knowledge develop independently. A fourth possibility is an iterative
view. The causal relations are said to be bi-directional, with increases in conceptual knowledge
leading to subsequent increases in procedural knowledge and vice versa. The iterative view
accommodates gradual improvements in each type of knowledge over time so, now the most
well-accepted perspective to the iterative view. If knowledge is measured using continuous,
rather than categorical, measures, it becomes clear that one type of knowledge is not well
developed before the other emerges, arguing against a strict concepts- or procedures-first view.
First, positive correlations between the two types of knowledge have been found in a wide
range of ages and domains. The domains include counting, addition and subtraction, fractions
and decimals, estimation, and equation solving. Second, evidence for predictive, bi-directional
relations between conceptual and procedural knowledge has been found in mathematical
domains ranging from fractions to equation solving. Conceptual and procedural knowledge were
modelled as latent variables to better account for the indirect relation between overt behavior and
the underlying knowledge structures.
Elementary-school children were given a very brief lesson on a procedure for solving
mathematical equivalence problems (e.g. 2 + 3 + 6 = 2 + __), the concept of mathematical
equivalence, or were given no lesson. Children who received the procedure lesson gained a better
understanding of the concept, and children who received the concept lesson generated correct
procedures for solving the problems. For example, elementary-school children solved packets of
problems for 10 minutes on seven occasions during their school mathematics lessons. The
problems were arithmetic problems sequenced based on conceptual principles (e.g. 2 + 3
followed by 3 + 2), the same arithmetic problems sequenced randomly, or non-mathematical
problems (control group). In here, experimentally manipulating one type of knowledge can lead
to increases in the other type of knowledge and practice-solving problems can support
improvements in conceptual knowledge when constructed appropriately.
Solving conceptually sequenced practice problems supported gains in conceptual
knowledge, as well as procedural knowledge. So there are bi-directional links between the two
types of knowledge; improving procedural knowledge can lead to improved conceptual
knowledge and vice versa, especially if potential links between the two are made salient (e.g.
through conceptually sequencing problems). At the same time, practice implementing procedures
may help students develop and deepen understanding of concepts can strengthen each other over
time.
However, the relations between the two types of knowledge are not always symmetrical. In
Schneider and Rittle-Johnson (2011), the relations were symmetrical—the strength of the
relationship from prior conceptual knowledge to later procedural knowledge was the same as
from prior procedural knowledge to later conceptual knowledge. Furthermore, practice solving
problems does not always support growth in conceptual knowledge and increasing school
experience. In general, it is best if procedural lessons are crafted to encourage noticing of
underlying concepts.
The symmetry of the relations between conceptual and procedural knowledge also varies
between individuals. Overall, the relations between conceptual and procedural knowledge are bi-
directional, but sometimes they are not symmetrical. At times, conceptual knowledge more
consistently and strongly supports procedural knowledge than the reverse. Crafting procedural
lessons to encourage noticing of underlying concepts can promote a stronger link from improved
procedural knowledge to gains in conceptual knowledge.

Conclution
Understanding learning can be further enhanced by the application of conceptual
understanding and procedural knowledge. Mathematical understanding skills can be developed
through problem solving, reasoning, and argumentation.
Conceptual understanding is an important component of proficiency, along with factual
knowledge and procedural facility. Procedural knowledge is the ability to execute action
sequences (i.e. procedures) to solve problems.
There have been four different theoretical viewpoints on the causal relations between
conceptual and procedural knowledge, i.e: that children initially acquire conceptual knowledge,
children first learn procedures, and that conceptual and procedural knowledge develop
independently. A fourth possibility is an iterative view

References
NAEP (2003).What Does the NAEP Mathematics Assessment Measure? Online at
nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/mathematics/abilities.asp.

National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (2000).Principles and Standards for School

Mathematics. Reston, VA: NCTM.

National Research Council (2001).Adding It Up: Helping Children Learn Mathematics.

Washington, DC: National Academy Press

Rittle-Johnson, Bethanyand Michael Schneider. 2011. Developing Conceptual and Procedural

Knowledge of Mathematics. University of Trier. 26 September 2016.

Stylianides, Andreas J. and Gabriel J. Stylianides. 2007. Learning Mathematics with

Understanding: A Critical Consideration of the Learning Principle in the Principles and
Standards for School Mathematics. Vol. 4, No.1, Article 8.
http://scholarworks.umt.edu/tme. 25 September 2016.