It matters to motivation for a lot of people, and it matters when you take the step from that procedure to the next one up. If you don't understand why the procedure works, then when you go into an exam and can't remember the formula, you have no skills to fall back on to figure out how to get to the answer.
You can't build on knowledge you don't have, and memory is very closely tied to how well we understand the connections between concepts. If you don't understand how to connect math concepts to each other or to the real world, then it doesn't matter how well you can manipulate them - you're not going to be able to apply them outside of contrived situations and you're going to have trouble remembering them after the impetus of the exam is gone.
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Date: 2009-03-13 03:53 pm (UTC)You can't build on knowledge you don't have, and memory is very closely tied to how well we understand the connections between concepts. If you don't understand how to connect math concepts to each other or to the real world, then it doesn't matter how well you can manipulate them - you're not going to be able to apply them outside of contrived situations and you're going to have trouble remembering them after the impetus of the exam is gone.