Yogyakarta – Tuesday, 17 May 2016, at Gamma Room, PPPPTK Matematika, Prof. Subanar, Ph.D. officially opened this year’s second regular course entitled SEA Realistic Mathematics Education for junior Secondary School Mathematics Teachers. The opening ceremony was attended by course participants, staff, and management of the Centre.
In his opening remark, Prof. Subanar, Ph.D congratulated the participants for being selected to join the course. He was so sure that the programme offered a window of opportunity for the teachers to improve their quality. He also talked at glance about Freudenthal Institute which deals with realistic mathematics education. The institute takes the name from German-Dutch Professor Hans Frudenthal who has been the spiritual father of realistic mathematics education and whose notable motto “learning mathematics through rediscovery”.
This two-week course was participated by 30 junior secondary school mathematics teachers from six SEAMEO Member Countries namely Timor Leste, Malaysia, Thailand, Lao PDR, Cambodia, the Philippines, and Indonesia.
During the course, the participants were guided to learn realistic mathematics education by the facilitators who do not only come from some Indonesian reputable universities, such as UNISRI (Sriwijaya University), USD (Sanata Dharma University), and UNY (State University of Yogyakarta) but also from Utrecht University Netherland, Assoc. Prof. Marteen Dolk.
After completing the course, the participants are expected to be able to understand the basic concept of realistic mathematics education and use this approach in mathematics teaching and learning at class.