Re: RME Query

dkirsh who-is-at lsu.edu
Fri, 23 Jul 1999 19:04:09 -0500

Hi Mike.
I can't answer your question about whether Realistic Mathematics
Education has been implemented or evaluation on a wide scale.
But there is a recent ER article on Realistic Teacher Education
which seems to come from the same philosophical school as
RME and which has been widely implemented and evaluated,
as described in the paper. The epistemological foundations are
clearly described, and rely on on Aristotle's notions of Episteme
and Phronesis, and on Gestalts.
Hope this helps.
David

Korthagen, F. A. J., & Kessels, J. P. A. M. (1999).
Linking theory and practice: Changing the pedagogy
of teacher education. Educational Researcher, 28(4), 4-17.

Mike Cole <mcole who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu> on 07/23/99 03:33:45 PM

Please respond to xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu






To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu

cc: (bcc: David H Kirshner/dkirsh/LSU)



Subject: RME Query

I have been reading the Cobb articles in three recent publications
and from what I have I cannot tell what sort of evaluations have
been done on the Realistic Mathematics Education programs. Have they
been used on a wide scale? Is there anything comparable to the evaluations
of change in the Brown/Campione et al communities of learners studies?

I have been wondering about the practical implications of our discussion
on the transmission/emergence discussion of weeks past (wow did that go
silent quickly when it went!). For a while I thought that it would be
reasonable to argue that there were none. Both positions fall within
a set of activity-based, small group, pedagogy and those have repeatedly
been shown to work so long as they are well supported. So what difference
does it make if you use rogoff or cobb or vygotsky or Feurerstein as
your starting point?

Here's something I noticed. Because Paul is concerned that children's
encounters with meanings not be with the "already-given", or perhaps
ought not to be played out on the territory of the already-given, he
uses materials for which there are no easy ready-to-hand meanings, like
packing cubes into wrappers, 10 to a wrapper. So there is at least an
aspect of practice that is clearly guided by a theoretical concern.

Which may be a useful thought to someone
Or not.
mike

PS- I sure would like a ref to a closely evaluated study of RME!