The Nature of Reasoning-and-Proving Opportunities in Secondary School Textbooks in Trinidad and Tobago

• In Event: 29.091 - Poster Session 4
  In Poster Session: 29.091-10 - Issues in Caribbean and African Education

Abstract

In Trinidad and Tobago, there have been substantive reform efforts of the mathematics curriculum and policy documents to exemplify the role of reasoning-and-proving. However, little is known about how proof is promoted in mathematics textbooks in Trinidad and Tobago. In this study, I use an analytical framework found in Otten, Gilbertson, Males, and Clark (2014) to examine the opportunities for reasoning-and-proving in one geometry topic in three contemporary secondary school textbooks. The analysis suggests that the expository mathematical statements were prevalently general in nature. The student exercises promoted explanatory deductive arguments with limited opportunities for finding counterexamples or making conjectures. Findings suggest implications about the design of textbooks and the enculturation of all students into the practices of reasoning-and-proving.

Author

• Andrew Anthony Hunte, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign