PROCEEDINGS OF THE 22ND ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON RESEARCH IN UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS EDUCATION
2019
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Students’ proving as a collaborative work-in-progress: The case of a graduate course in topology
Page: 1085
We observed recordings of instances from a graduate course in topology where students engaged in proving theorems on the whiteboard in a collaborative environment. We considered the written component on the whiteboard as “the proof”, which was aided, in 17 out of 20 instances by some form of verbal explanation. The peculiarity of the class structure allowed each lesson to be followed by an open discussion regarding “the proof”. As a result of the discussions, the written component of each proof would undergo improvements. When analyzing the developments of the proofs in this course, we employed the thematic of proof introduced by Mariotti. Stemmed by these proof-presentations, we introduce the idea of proving as a “work-in-progress” activity.