Realistic Mathematics Education — A different approach to learning and instruction

Abstract

Realistic Mathematics Education (RME) has been developed in the Netherlands in the past decades, based on the educational philosophy of ‘mathematics as an human activity’ of Freudenthal. Starting with a brief history of theories on learning and instruction, and passing through a discussion on the use of models in Mathematics Education, in this article, a choice for the bottom-up approach to learning and instruction of Realistic Mathematics Education is gradually justified. In this process, the key principles of RME as well as the type of research that gives rise to it are discussed as well.