Using Learning and Instructional Theories in Teaching

Mathematics
Understanding of theories about how people learn and the ability to apply
these theories in teaching mathematics are important prerequisites for
effective mathematics teaching. Many people have approached the study
of intellectual development and the nature of learning in different ways;
this has resulted in several theories of learning. Although there is still
some disagreement among psychologists, learning theorists, and
educators about how people learn and the most effective methods for
promoting learning, there are many areas of agreement. The different
theories of learning should not be viewed as a set of competing theories,
one of which is true and the others false. Each theory can be regarded as a
method of organizing and studying some of the many variables in learning
and intellectual development, and teachers can select and apply
elsements of each theory in their own classes. You may find that some
theories are more applicable to you and your student because they seem
to be appropriate models for the learning environment and the students
with whom you interact. However, a perceptive teacher will find some
applications of each learning theory for his or her students. As a
consequence of being able to appreciate the learning theoretic reasons for
various forms of behavior exhibited by each student, he or she will be a
more understanding and sympathetic teacher.
In the past many mathematics teachers and teacher educators
neglected the application of theories about the nature of learning and
centered their teaching methods around knowledge of the subject. Recent
findings in learning theory, better understanding of mental development,
and new applications of theory to classroom teaching how enable teachers
to choose teaching strategies according to information about the nature
of learning. The purpose of this chapter is to present several the major
theories about the nature of intellectual development, to discuss theories
about learning, and to illustrate applications of each theory to teaching
and learning mathematics.
First, we will look at the theory of Jean Piaget who has determined
and studied the various stages through which humans progress in their
intellectual growth from birth to adulthood. Next we will consider the work
of J. P. Guilford, who has developed and tested a theoretical model of
human intellectual structure. Guilford and his associates have identified
one hundred twenty intellectual aptitudes which encompass many of the
mental abilities which are capable of being measured and evaluated. We
will also consider the work of Robert Gagne who has identified four
phases of a learning sequence. These phases are the apprehending phase,
the acquisition phase, the storage phase, and the retrieval phase. Gagne
also has specified eight types of learning which can be distinguished from
each other according to the necessary conditions for the occurrence of
each learning type; they are signal teaching, stimulus-response learning,
chaining, verbal association, discrimination learning, concept learning, rule

learning, and problem-solving. The theories and work of Zoltan Dienes

are also relevant to teaching mathematics. Dienes regards mathematics as
the study of structures and relationships among structures and has
developed a system for mathematics education which is based upon a
theory of learning and a process for teaching mathematics. David
Ausubel has made significant contributions to the study of verbal
learning, which he believes can be accomplished through careful
consideration of the structure of the discipline and by using appropiate
principles to order the subject matter for presentation to students. The
psychologist Jerome Bruner has listed general theorems for instruction
and has developed a philosophy of education centered around the
structural framework essential for learning, student readiness for learning,
intuition, and motivation to learn. His general theories are also relevant for
mathematics teachers. B. F. Skinner has conducted extensive studies of
behavior and has developed a science of human behavior based upon his
work in behavioral analysis. His writings suggest ways in which teachers
can create more effective learning situations by using appropiate
techniques to elicit desirable behaviors from students.

Piagets Theory of Intellectual Development

According to the theory of the noted Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget,
human intellectual development progresses chronologically through four
sequential stages. The order in which the states occur has been found to
be invariant among people; however the ages at which people enter each
higher order stage vary according to each persons unique hereditary and
environmental characteristics.
Sensory-Motor Stage
The first period of intellectual development, called the sensory-motor
stage, extends from birth until about two years of age. In this period the
infants learning consists of developing and organizing his or her physica;
and mental activities into well-defined sequences of actions called
schemas. From birth to two years of age children learn to coordinate their
senses and movements, learn that an object which is removed from sight
does not cease to exist, and learn to attach word symbols to physical
objects. For example, near the end of this stage a child can recognize the
sound of father closing the front door to leave for work, can totter to the
window and watch him get on the bus, and understands that he will return
later. In this period children progress from having only reflex abilities at
birth to being able to walk and talk at two years of age.
Preoperational Stage
The second period, the preoperational stage, extends from approximately
age two to age seven. In this stage children are very egocentric; that is,
they assimilate most experiences in the world at large into schemas
developed from their immediate environment and view everything in

relation to themselves. Young children believe that all their thoughts and
experiences are shared by everyone else, that inanimate objects have
animate characteristics, and that the distinction between one and many is
of little consequence. This explains why a young child does not question a
different Santa Claus on every street corner and Santa Claus mannequins
in every department store window. The preoperational thinker has
difficulty reversing thoughts and reconstructing actions, can not consider
two aspects of an object or a situation simultaneously, and does not
reason inductively (from specific to general) or deductively (from general
to specific). The young child reasons transductively; that is, from specific
instances to specific instances. In this stage children can not differentiate
fact and fancy, which is why their lies are not a consequence of any
moral deficiency, but result from their inability to separate real events
from the world of their imaginations. Through physical maturation and
interacting with his or her environment, the child in the pre-conceptual
stage is developing the necessary mental schemas to operate at a higher
intellectual level. Near the end of this stage children become capable of
giving reasons for their beliefs, can classify sets of objects according to a
single specified characteristic, and begin to attain some actual concepts.
Concrete Operational Stage
The concrete operational stage of mental development extends from age
seven to age twelve, thirteen or even later. At the beginning of this stage
there is a substantial decrease in childrens egocentricity; play with other
children replaces isolated play and individualized play in the presence of
other children. In this stage children become able to classify objects
having several characteristics into sets and subsets according to specified
characteristics, and they can simultaneously consider several
characteristics of an object. They begin to understand jokes; however they
still have trouble explaining proverbs and fail to see hidden meanings.
They are now able to deal with complex relationship between classes, can
reverse operations and procedures, and can understand and visualize
intermediate states of a transformation such as the sun rising and setting.
In the concrete operational period children become able to see another
persons viewpoint and near the end of this period begin to reason
inductively and deductively; however many still tend to regard successive
examples of a general principle as unrelated events.
Although children in this stage to develop many of the intellectual
abilities found in adults, they have difficulties understanding verbal
abstractions. They can perform complex operations such as reversibility,
substitution, unions and intersections of sets, and serial orderings on
concrete objects, but may not be able to carry out these same operations
with verbal symbols. Their powers of judgement and logical reasoning are
not well developed, and they rarely can solve a problem such as: Jane is
taller than Bill; Jane is shorter than Susan; who is shortest of the three?
However, children in this stage can order a pile of sticks from shortest to
longest. Before the end of this period children are seldom able to

formulate a precise, descriptive definition; although they can memorize

another persons definition and reproduce what they have memorized. In
this stage children learn to differentiate between deliberate wrongdoing
and inadvertant mistakes. Even after developing a conception of rules and
morality, they still attach a mystical aura to the origin of rules, morals,
laws, and conventions, as well as the origin of names. To preadolescent
children, a rose is called a rose because it is a rose, not because someone
named it a rose.
This developmental period is called concrete operational because
psychologists have found that children between seven and twelve have
trouble applying formal intellectual processes to verbal symbols and
abstract ideas; even though by age twelve most children have become
quite adept at using their intellect to manipulate concrete physical objects.
In this period children like to build things, manipulate objects, and make
mechanical gadgets operate.
Formal Operational Stage
When adolescents reach the formal operational stage, they no longer need
to rely upon concrete operations to represent or illustrate mental
abstractions. They are now able to simultaneously consider many
viewpoints, to regard their own actions objectively, and to reflect upon
their own thought processes. The formal operational thinker can formulate
theories, generate hypotheses, and test various hypotheses. People who
have reached this intellectual stage can appreciate degrees of good and
evil and can view definitions, rules and laws in a proper, objective context.
They can also think inductively and deductively and can argue by
implication (i.e., if x then y). Adolescents are able to understand and apply
complex concepts such as permutations and combinations, proportions,
correlations, and probability; and they can conceive of the infinitely large
and the infinitesimally small.
Factors in Intellectual Development
Piagetian theory explain intellectual development as a process of
assimilation and accommodation of information into the mental structure.
Assimilation is the process through which new information and
experiences are incorporated into mental structure, and accomodation is
the resulting restructuring of the mind as a consequence of new
information and experiences. The mind not only receives new information
but it restructures its old information to accommodate the new. For
example, new information about a political personality is not only added to
the minds old information about that person. This information may also
alter the individuals viewpoint of politics, politicians, and government in
general, and may even change his or her moral and ethical values.
Learning is not merely adding new information to the stack of old
information, because every piece of new information causes the stack of
old information to be modified to accommodate the assimilation of the
new information.

According to Piagets theory, there are several factors influencing

intellectual development. First, the physiological growth of the brain and
nervous system is an important factor in general intellectual progress. This
growth process is called maturation. Piaget also recognizes the importance
of experience in mental development and identifies two types of
experience. Physical experience is the interaction of each person with
objects in his or her environment, and logicomathematical experiences are
those mental actions performed by individuals as their mental schemas
are restructured according to their experiences. Another factor, social
transmission, is the interaction and cooperation of a person with other
people and is quite important for the development of logic in a childs
mind. Piaget believes that formal operations would not develop in the
mind without an exchange and coordination of viewpoints among people.
The last factorm equilibration, is the process whereby a persons mental
structure loses its stability as a consequence of new experiences and
returns to equilibrium through the processes of assimilation and
accommodation. As a result of equilibration, mental structures develop
and mature. Piaget believes that these five factors (maturation, physical
experience, logico-mathematical experience, social transmission, and
equilibration) account for intellectual development and that each one must
be present if a person is to progress through the four stages of intellectual
development.
The four stages of development (sensory-motor, preoperational,
concrete operational, and formal operational) while sequential in nature,
do not have welldefined starting and ending points. The progression from
one stage to the next occurs over a period of time and each individual
may vacillate in his or her ability to exhibit the higher order mental
processes throughout this transitional period. Even after a person has
completed the transition from one stage to the next, he or she may still
use mental processes associated with the earlier stages. An adolescent
who has developed his or her intellectual capabilities to the formal
operational stage has the mental structures necessary to carry out formal
operations, but will no always do so. Many formal operational adults
frequently count on their fingers which is a preoperational trait. A young
person who has entered the formal operational stage will continue to
improve his or her formal operational skills for many years.
Piagets Theory and Teaching Mathematics
Several years ago while discussing teaching methods with a young
mathematics teacher, she remarked that she was appalled because most
of her seventh graders could not understand even a simple proof. I asked if
she had studies Piagets learning theories in college, and she replied that
she had but didnt see what that had to do with her seventh graders doing
mathematical proofs. This incident illustrates the need for teachers to see
the applications in their own teaching of the theories which they learn in
college, and for teacher educators to show prospective teachers the
applications of learning theory.

Since seventh graders are twelve or thirteen years of age, some of

them are still in the concrete operational stage, others have just entered
the stage of formal operations, and still others are in transition between
these two stages of intellectual development. Consequently, many
seventh grade students intellectual development has not yet progressed
to the point where they have the mental structures necessary for
constructing formal mathematical proofs. Some of these students do not
yet see the difference between a single instance of a general principle and
a proof of that principle. This is not to say that a seventh grade teacher
should not explore the nature of intuitive and formal mathematical proofs
with students; however he or she should realize that a twelve year old
adolescent has a different mental structure (as well as an obviously
different physical structure) than a twenty-two year old teacher.
Since secondary level mathematics teachers are expected to be able
to teach students in middle schools, junior high schools and high schools,
they must prepare to teach students ranging in age from eleven to
nineteen. Sixth, seventh, and eighth grade teachers can expect to find
many concrete operational students in their classes, and even some high
school juniors and seniors are still in this stage of intellectual
development. Therefore, it is appropriate for us to examine the intellectual
atributes which some secondary school students do not have, but which
are required to carry out many standard school mathematics learning
activities.
A teacher should expect certain complex abilities, skills, and
behaviors from a student who is in the formal operational stage and should
be concerned if formal operational mental processes are not exhibited.
However, at every secondary school grade level there are students who
have not completely entered the formal operational stage, and teachers
should be aware of the behaviors that can be expected from these
student. Such students merely illustrate the fact that people mature
mentally at different ages which is analogous to the different rates of
physical maturation which we have come to expect. No teacher would
regard a seventh grader who is small for his age group as a physical
cripple, and neither should teachers regard children who mature
intellectually at a later age as being mentally retarded. Every mathematics
teacher, especially those who teach in grades six through nine, should be
understanding of students mental inabilities in this stage, should provide
learning strategies appropriate for concrete operations, and should plan
activities to help students progress to the stage of formal operations.
Students in grade six through nine are difficult to teach because
they are still testing their recently discovered concrete operational abilities
while they are entering the formal operation stage. Concrete operational
students have discovered that rules are not absolute, but are arbitrary.
These students are trying out their own rules and challenging the
teachers rules, which results in what we usualy call disciple problems. In
this period children need to associate and talk to other children as an aid

to entering the formal operatinal stage through the process of social

transmission. As a result junior high school students may appear to
teachers to be talkative, noisy, rowdy, and undisciplined. What seems to
adults to be a lot of fooling around on the part of students is partly a
means of fostering their intellectual development.
These students do not want to accept statements based only upon
the teachers authority and do not care to accept new concepts which are
outside their ability to visualize and conceptualize. Consequently they
would be unlikely to either believe or accept on faith the concept of
different orders of infinities or the fact that the cardinal number of the set
of counting numbers is the same as the cardinal number of the set of even
counting numbers which is a proper subset of the counting numbers. In
fact, most concrete operational students have trouble with the concept of
infinity and indefinite subdivisions of a line segment into arbitrarily small
segments.
Junior high school students enjoy working with diagrams, models,
and other physical devices; they need to relate new abstract concepts to
physical reality and their own experiences. New topics in mathematics
should be introduced through concrete examples, and intuition and
experimentation should play a large part in teaching strategies for new
principles and concepts. In geometry one should expect that many
students will have trouble visualizing three-dimensional objects and
relationships among objects. They will need to construct and manipulate
models of geometric figures. Geometry in the junior high school should be
presented informally and intuitively and formal geometric proof should
wait until students are well into their formal operational stage of
intellectual development. For a few people this will not happen until their
freshman or sophomore year in college.
Although concrete operational students can formulate and use
concepts corectly they have trouble explaining concepts using
mathematical and verbal symbol. As a result of this deficiency, many
students (maybe even most younger students) can not solve
mathematical word problems, and error attempts are so unsystematic that
they may keep repeating incorrect trials. As might be expected, many
younger high school students are unable to make meaningful definitions of
mathematical terms and merely memorize definitions.
Concrete thinkers can not be expected to solve logical puzzles or to
resolve mathematical paradoxes. Also they tend not to be able to arrive at
generalizations based upon a number of similar instances. For instances,
they would not arrive at the commutative principle for addition,
a+b=b+ a , from examples such as 2+3=3+ 2 and 8+11=11+8 . These
children will no be able to handle several variables simultaneously, and
complex relationships such as proportions and function of several
variables are inappropriate for many middle school children. Mathematical
symbols and manipulations involve formal operations, and many students

learn algebra by memorizing rules for combining and manipulating

symbols with little understanding of the meaning of algebraic techniques.
a+b
b , and
( x+ y )2=x 2+ y 2 ,
x2 + y 2=x + y are
For example,
a
perfectly sensible statements for many algebra students. Even numerical
counterexamples to illustrate the fallacy of these statements are not
'
'
'
meaningful to students who are merely manipulating x s , y s , a s , and
b' s

according to arbitrary rules.

In conclusion, it should be pointed out that Piaget and his close

associates have been concerned with studying and defining the nature and
development of human thought and have not attempted to specify
methods for improving teaching and learning. It has been left to others to
apply the theories and findings of the Piagetians to classroom teaching.
Many of the experiments which were developed to determine the stages of
intellectual development involve observing and recording childrens
responses when they are given tasks of a mathematical nature.
Consequently, some of the types of mathematical problems which children
can handle at different ages and intellectual levels have been specified by
the Piagetians. Even though much work on Piagets theory of intellectual
development remains to be done, his theory has gained wide acceptance
among psychologist, learning theorists, and educators. Every mathematics
teacher should be familiar with Piagets work and should apply his
discoveries about mental readiness for various learning tasks to his or her
own teaching. Heed the example at the beginning of this topic of the
teacher who knew the theory but never thought to appy it in her own
classes. Some of the Things to Do and references in the Selected
Bibliography at the end of this chapter will help you learn more about
applications of Piagets theory in mathematics teaching.