“Making Mathematics Reasonable in School” DISCUSSION ...

“Making Mathematics Reasonable
in School”
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. What do we mean by mathematical reasoning?
2. Why is it important that students’ develop their
mathematical reasoning skills?
The authors suggest that we can enable the development of
mathematical reasoning in three arenas:
• Designing and using mathematical tasks
• Making records of mathematical knowledge
• Making ideas public

3. Mathematical Tasks
• How can we design, adapt, and use tasks “to create the
need and opportunity for substantial mathematical
reasoning”?
• What are some ideas for tasks or examples of tasks you
have used to develop students’ mathematical reasoning?
4. Public Knowledge
• What do we mean by public knowledge?
• “Teachers play an important role in making mathematical
knowledge and language public and in scaffolding their
use” (p. 41).
How can we as teachers develop a foundation of public
knowledge in our classroom?
• What are you doing now or what would like to do in your
own classroom to develop a foundation of public
knowledge?
What challenges do you foresee and how can these
challenges be overcome?
5. Language
• How is mathematical language involved in developing
students’ mathematical reasoning?