PROCEEDINGS OF THE 18TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON RESEARCH IN UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS EDUCATION
2015
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Silence: A casestudy
Page: 871
Silence has been important to many disparate traditions, notably, Zen Buddhism, and Taoism. But it has received relatively little treatment in the mathematics education literature. This paper attempts to begin a conversation on silence, its good and bad uses, and raises the question of whether silence may be an important aspect of mathematics activity. In order begin an answer to that question, it analyzes the contribution that a particular group member's silence produced for the group, leading both to a correct solution, and to a valuation of her group-mate's arguments.