PROCEEDINGS OF THE 20TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON RESEARCH IN UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS EDUCATION
2017
San Diego, California
Mathematicians’ evaluations of the language of mathematical proof writing at the undergraduate level in three different pedagogical contexts
Page: 141
This paper presents the findings from a survey used to investigate how mathematicians perceive the genre of mathematical proof writing at the undergraduate level. Mathematicians were asked whether proof excerpts were unconventional in three contexts: undergraduate textbooks, what instructors write on the blackboard in undergraduate courses, and how students write in these courses. There are four main findings. First, participants found some potential breaches unconventional regardless of the context in which they occur. Second, mathematicians perceived the linguistic conventions in blackboard proofs and student-produced proofs differently in some cases. Third, textbook authors are expected to adhere to stricter norms than instructors and students when writing proofs. Fourth, there were potential breaches that the literature suggests were unconventional, which were not evaluated as unconventional by the mathematicians.