Students Reasoning and Representing Activities When Learning About Functions

• In Event: Algebraic Reasoning Across Grades

Abstract

This article explores students’ co-emergence of reasoning and representing skills related to functions via respective analysis of classroom data. I found that students’ co-emergence of reasoning and representation activities are intertwined and can be operationalized into two levels. A partial connection between students’ reasoning and representing is defined as creating a single representation to illustrate a covarying quantitative relationship yet may struggle to extend this reasoning to alternative representations. A flexible connection between reasoning and representing is needed in creating and interpreting multiple representations to illustrate the covarying quantitative relationships; such types of reasoning and representing activities are rare. Still, they are attributed to a sophisticated understanding of mathematical phenomena and may require further articulation and teacher-probing questions.

Author

• Nigar Altindis, University of Alabama