TE855 Research Project

Mathematical argumentation is essential to the practice of mathematics, and in order to provide beneficial opportunities for students to engage in math reasoning, teachers must be able to validate student arguments and provide effective feedback to students based on those validations (Bleiler, Thompson, Krajcˇevski (2013). In order to understand the limitations of the learner’s understanding and processing of information, we first need to consider the limitations of the teacher’s understanding and application of mathematical argumentation and reasoning. Mata-Pereira and Pedro da Ponte (2017) state that teachers need to promote students’ mathematical reasoning and provide challenging learning environments rather than just lessons where they solve exercises using well-known procedures. Moreover, teachers also have the task of choosing tasks that lead to multiple representations or solving processes that promote disagreements resulting in the increased development of students’ mathematical reasoning (Brodie, 2010). Through creating balance between the level of difficulty of a task, appropriate setting of the length and frequency of these tasks, and adequate input and support, teachers can help students to build strong math reasoning and justification skills.