A Learning Trajectory for Teaching Social Arithmetic using RME Approach

This paper discusses the role of a learning trajectory (LT) in promoting students' reasoning when they learn social arithmetic using Realistic Mathematics Education (RME) approach. In our LT, we built the intertwining of the concepts such as profit, loss, percentage, discount, and interest rate, so that the students understand the relations among them. The LT was developed through a design research that consisted of a cyclic process of preparing for the experiment, conducting the experiment, and retrospective analysis. The research's subject was 32 students at grade 7 MTsN Sintoga, Pariaman, Indonesia. Data were collected through observations, interviews, checklist, videotaping, and analyzing the students' works. The results showed that the LT could help the students to reinvent the concepts in social arithmetic. The students had more confidence to use their own strategies in solving contextual problems. The most important thing, we discovered the growth in the students' mathematical reasoning.