The Influence of Realistic Mathematics Education Outside the Netherlands—The Case of Puerto Rico

Abstract

In this chapter, we describe the genesis and evolution of Realistic Mathematics Education (RME) in Puerto Rico, and analyse the aspects that allowed or deferred its influence on local mathematics education.RMEwas introduced in Puerto Rico thanks to a group of mathematics professors at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus, who collaborated, first with staff from Wisconsin University and later more closely with a team of designers from the Freudenthal Institute. This was the beginning of a collaboration that lasted several years and accounted for the design and development of quality educational materials adapted to the Puerto Rican reality. The initial goal was to develop a curriculum for the elementary level, but it soon developed into a more comprehensive project Las Matemáticas en Contexto en Puerto Rico (MeC-PR) that included training for teachers and developers, implementation efforts, and research initiatives. RME in Puerto Rico went through interconnected, and sometimes overlapping, stages of design, training, implementation, and research. All of them left their mark in different areas such as educational practices, official documents, and research practices.