Mrs. Patrice Benjamin-Hunte is a high-school Mathematics teacher in Trinidad and Tobago for over 25 years. She teaches grades 6 to 10 Mathematics. Mrs. Benjamin-Hunte holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics and Computer Science and a Post-Graduate Diploma in the Teaching of Mathematics from the University of the West Indies, St Augustine. Mrs. Benjamin-Hunte enjoys teaching Mathematics and hosting her school’s annual Mathematics Week and International Day of Mathematics activities. She is married to Dr. Andrew Hunte, her co-author and enjoys incorporating new pedagogical strategies in her teaching of Mathematics.
Session Description
Throughout the Caribbean educational territories, reform-oriented curricula highlight the intellectual need of reasoning and proof in students’ mathematical development. In this narrative study, we documented teachers and their students’ journey as they engaged in the processes of reasoning and proof during a unit of secondary school geometry lessons. Through classroom observations and pre and post-observation interviews with the teachers and their students, we examined the social mathematical norms and classroom practices that facilitated students’ learning experiences with reasoning and proof. We also determined whether the instructional practices aligned with reformers’ recommendations. Our analysis of the data indicated that the teachers exhibited reform-oriented practices by establishing social mathematical norms that led to discussions about mathematical content during each process of reasoning and proof.
The students progressed from identifying patterns through conjecturing and then argumentation, ultimately leading to their learning and proving congruency of triangles. The teachers also incorporated cultural artifacts framed in an ethnomathematical lens to engage students in the mathematics lessons. Moreover, we noted the teacher’s incorporation of the Geometric Calculation with Number and Explanation (GCNE) (Hunte, 2018) questions at the final stage in the processes of reasoning and proof. This study provides the much-needed documented evidence of classroom practices that align with reformers recommendations for the teaching of reasoning and proof. Furthermore, the classroom practices fostered students’ development of critical thinking abilities, problem-solving skills, and a conceptual understanding of mathematics that is essential for success in higher education and in the workplace.