PROCEEDINGS OF THE 18TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON RESEARCH IN UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS EDUCATION
2015
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Exploration of undergraduate students’ and mathematicians’ perspectives on creativity
Page: 993
Mathematical creativity has been an object of discussion in mathematics for some time (Borwein, Liljedahl, & Zhai, 2014). Though there are recent efforts to include creativity in K-12 education agendas (Askew, 2013) and a number of research articles in mathematics education literature about creativity focus K-12 (e.g., Silver, 1997), there is little research in undergraduate mathematics education about creativity. Our study aims to address this issue by examining what mathematicians and undergraduate students think about creativity in proving. We coded six mathematician and eight student interviews using the Creativity in Progress Rubric (CPR) on proving created by the research group. A majority of the students’ responses were of the Creating Ideas category of the rubric, while mathematicians were more balanced. We claim that the other two categories (Taking Risks and Making Connections) might need further explicit discussion in classrooms if the transition from student to mathematician is desired.