Using Classroom Presentations To Improve Undergraduate Proof Skills
I am teaching a proofs course this semester that meets
twice a week. I am doing lectures on
Mondays and having students do presentations of their solutions on
Wednesdays. My philosophy being that I
can do so many examples of proofs and of what not do to. However, the best way to see what not to do
in a proof is to have students make mistakes on the board. When they see their classmates make
mistakes, they'll realize that these mistakes really do happen. It's not just me saying "I've seen this
before. Don't do this." I say this all the time in my Calculus classes,
and sure enough students repeat these mistakes I forewarned them about. Also, I can't think of nearly as many
"fake proofs" as students will invent while doing these
presentations.
I would like to give a report on how this experiment
turns out at the Baltimore meeting and I saw that you're organizing a session
that seems to deal with these kinds of issues.
If what I said sounds like what you'd like in your session and you have
slots open, let me know and I'll send you an official abstract by the end of
this week.