RUME 25
2023
Omaha, Nebraska
Two Vignettes on Students’ Symbolizing Activity for Set Relationships
Page: 652
Mathematicians often use set-builder notation and set diagrams to define and show relationships between sets in proof-related courses. This paper describes various meanings that students might attribute to these representations. Our data consist of students’ initial attempts to create and interpret these representations during the first day of a paired teaching experiment. Our analysis revealed that neither student imputed or attributed our desired theoretical meanings to their diagrams or notation. We summarize our findings in two vignettes, one describing students’ attributed meanings to instructor-provided set-builder notation and the other describing students’ imputed meanings to their personally-created set diagrams to relate pairs of sets