ERIC Number: EJ1033158
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2013-Aug
Pages: 7
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0025-5769
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: N/A
Improving Student Reasoning in Geometry
Wong, Bobson; Bukalov, Larisa
Mathematics Teacher, v107 n1 p54-60 Aug 2013
In their years of teaching geometry, Wong and Bukalov realized that the greatest challenge has been getting students to improve their reasoning. Many students have difficulty writing formal proofs--a task that requires a good deal of reasoning. Wong and Bukalov reasoned that the solution was to divide the lessons into parallel tasks, allowing students with different levels of understanding of a topic to work on the same task simultaneously. The authors organized problems into four levels of complexity but allowed students to select their own level and move freely between levels. By having access to all levels, students could monitor their own progress and know what they needed to do to move to the next level. The greatest challenge was balance in the amount of work for each level so that all students, no matter where they began, would be sufficiently challenged in class. Although this model required a great deal of effort to implement, Wong and Bukalov believe that it is worth the investment, as it provided a more structured and specific feedback to students and parents. By allowing students to choose between the parallel geometry tasks with four levels of complexity, they were empowered to take more control of their learning in reasoning, writing, and understanding proof. [A bibliography is included.]
Descriptors: Geometry, Abstract Reasoning, Problem Solving, Models, Mathematics Instruction, Mathematical Logic, High School Students
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. 1906 Association Drive, Reston, VA 20191-1502. Tel: 800-235-7566; Tel: 703-620-3702; Fax: 703-476-2970; e-mail: orders@nctm.org; Web site: http://www.nctm.org/publications/
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: High Schools; Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: New York
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A

Peer reviewed
Direct link
