Project Introduction
The Proofs Project has two main goals:
- Provide introductory proofs students with opportunities to develop reasoning and to construct the logical structures that are essential for flexibly solving problems in advanced STEM settings.
- Enable teachers to evoke instructional interactions surrounding epistemological obstacles that provide introductory proofs students with opportunities to realize, explore, and overcome these challenges.
Traditional instructional approaches often circumvent students' experience of epistemological obstacles, resulting in only surface understanding of fundamental logical ideas. The Proofs Project, however, aims to develop instructional tasks that empower instructors to elicit and address students' experience of epistemological obstacles head-on. Such an experience is necessary for influencing structural change in their logical reasoning.
This project aims to serve the national interest by improving students’ abilities to reason logically, think critically, and solve complex problems. It is a 2 phase cyclic project. It will identify instructional strategies for introductory proofs courses that empower students to analyze and solve important problems in advanced STEM settings.
- How do students experience the epistemological obstacles identified in prior research during instructional interactions, and what challenges remain?
- How do teachers experience the epistemological obstacles identified in prior research during instructional interactions, and what difficulties do they face in addressing them head on?
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant numbers DUE-2141626 . Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
