Learning to prove: The idea of heuristic examples

Abstract

Proof is an important topic in the area of mathematics curriculum and an essential aspect of mathematical competence. However, recent studies have revealed wide gaps in student's understanding of proof. Furthermore, effective teaching to prove, for example, by Schoenfeld's approach, is a real challenge for teachers. A very powerful and empirically well founded method of learning mathematics, which is also relatively easy to implement in the classroom, is learning through worked-out examples. It is, however, primarily suited for algorithmic content areas. We propose the concept of using heuristic worked-out examples, which do not provide an algorithmic problem solution but offer instead heuristic steps that lead towards finding a proof. We rely on Boero's model of proving in designing the single sub-steps of a heuristic example. We illustrate our instructional idea by presenting an heuristic example for proving that the interior angles in any triangle add up to 180°.