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The Role and Use of Examples in Learning to Prove

Nov. 19, 2012

Mathematicians often spend lots of time considering and analyzing examples before they attempt to develop a formal proof of a conjecture. In contrast, students typically spend little time doing that. With funding from the National Science Foundation, Eric Knuth and Amy Ellis investigate the ways middle school and high school students, undergraduate students, and mathematicians think about the examples they use when developing, exploring, and proving conjectures. This project eventually will develop instructional materials to help teachers and university instructors foster the development of their students’ thinking about and use of examples in learning to prove. More about Amy Ellis here and Eric Knuth here.