PROBLEM SOLVING WITH UNDERSTANDING.
- Resource Type
- Article
- Authors
- Siqi Huang,
- Source
- Conference Papers -- Psychology of Mathematics & Education of North America; 2022, p790-794, 5p
- Subject
- Mathematics education
Mathematics students
Problem solving
Decision making
Measurement
- Language
It is not well understood when, how, or why students seek a deep understanding of the underlying mathematics relevant to the problems they try to solve. This study of five pairs of UC Berkeley students (undergraduate n=4, graduate n=6) solving challenging mathematics problems indicated consequential differences in the degree to which they worked to understand underlying principles. Drawing on Hiebert and Carpenter's (1992) framework on understanding and Schoenfeld's (2010) model of decision making, I developed an observation system with a coding scheme to investigate students' orientations with respect to deep understanding. Preliminary results show that the system captures students' divergent choices of moves and illuminates aspects of their understanding-related orientations that are not otherwise evident. This approach holds further potential as both a teaching and a learning tool in mathematics classrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]