10. Given below is the Pirie-Kieran learning theory based on constructivism .

This theory seeks to explain pupils thinking while learning mathematics .Discuss this theory by giving specific examples from KBSR Mathematics.

The Pirie-Kieren theory provides a way to analyse the mathematical actions of a learner or a group of learners and can describe and account for the way that their mathematical understanding grows and develops. The Pirie-Kieren model was originally designed as a perspective to study students changing mathematical ideas. The model provides a framework to map student actions in a variety of contexts, tracing the back and forth movement among eight levels of understanding activities. Within these activities, learners build, search, and collect ideas. The inner most level is Primitive Knowing, consisting of ones previous knowledge brought to the learning context. This level serves as a source of materials to build subsequent understanding. Pirie and Kieren(1994) say that the process of coming to understand starts at a level called primitive knowing[which] does not imply low level mathematics, but is rather the starting place for the growth of any particular mathematical understanding and it is what the observer, the teacher or researcher assumes the person doing the understanding can do initially . Moving outward within the model, Image Making and Image Having are learner activities for making a new Image or revising an existing image, and then for manipulating that image in the mind. These two levels of activity play a prominent role in growth of prospective teachers understanding . Image making is when the learner is asked to make distinctions in previous knowing and use it in new ways . Image having is when a person can use a mental construct about a topic without having to do the particular activities which brought it about . The next level, Property Noticing, is an action of identifying properties of the constructed image. Property noticing occurs when one can manipulate or combine aspects of ones images to construct context specific, relevant properties A method, rule, or property is generalized from the properties in the level of Formalising. .

Formalizing is when the person abstracts a method or common quality from the previous image dependent know how which characterized the noticed properties . Beyond are levels of Observing, Structuring, and Inventising. Pirie and Kieren (1994b) describe the process of folding back to inner levels of understanding to retrieve primitive knowledge, make or have new images, or notice new properties. A person at the observing level is one who is in a position to reflect on and coordinate such formal activity and express such coordinationsas theorems . Structuring occurs when one attempts to think about ones formal observations as a theory . A person at the inventising level has a full structured understanding and may therefore be able to break away from the preconceptions which brought about this understanding and create new questions which grow into a totally new concept . An important feature in the Pirie and Kieren(1994) theory is that of folding back and they describe this idea as follows . When faced with a problem or question at any level, which is notimmediately solvable, one needs to fold back to an inner level in order to extend ones current, inadequate understanding. This returned-to, inner level activity, however, is not identical to the original inner level actions; it is now informed and shaped by outer level interests and understanding. The inner level action is part of a recursive reconstruction of knowledge, necessary to further build outer level knowing . The darker lines on the model represent a second feature of the Pirie-Kieren theory, that of the dont need boundaries. Pirie and Kieren(1994) call these darker rings the dont need boundaries in order to convey the idea that beyond the boundary one does not need the specific inner understanding that gave rise to the outer knowing .