Summary of Subchapter 2.2 (Understanding RME) of the following reference:
Zulkardi. (2002). Developing a Learning Environment on Realistic Mathematics Education for Indonesian Student Teachers (Doctoral dissertation). University of Twente, Enschede.
The concept of RME is based on Hans Freudenthal’s views of mathematics as a human activity which implies that the students should be encouraged to find and reinvent the mathematics themselves. In order to reach the target, the learning process should start from the real world problem, or things which is well known by the students. Such strategy is then called ‘didactical phenomenology’.
In addition to that, Van Hiele identified three levels of learning mathematics. It starts when students can play with the pattern which is familiar to them. The next phases are when they could recognize the relationships among the patterns, and elaborate its internal characteristics.
Following the ideas, RME is resulted with five main characteristics (tenets), that is:
1. The use of context
This tenet best matches with ‘conceptual and applied mathematization’ proposed by de Lange (1987). The idea positions ‘real world’ as both the starting and final point of learning cycle. So, the students would find mathematics concept in reality, explore it, identify the related-mathematics concept, generalize, and apply it into the other aspects of life.
Math on Journey 