Collaborative Creativity in Proving: Adapting a Reflection Tool for Group Use

Amanda Lake HEATH

Middle Tennessee State University
United States of America

Published in The Mathematician Educator, 2022, Vol 3, No. 2, pp 85-100.

Abstract

Creativity is central to mathematics and mathematics education. One hindrance to research in mathematical creativity is the complex nature of defining and measuring creativity. Some efforts have been made to study mathematical creativity at the K-12 level, but just recently researchers have begun exploring mathematical creativity at the undergraduate level. Proof is essential to an undergraduate mathematics education, and as university mathematics classrooms evolve to incorporate more active and collaborative learning, it is imperative to understand the relationship between collaboration and creativity in proving. This study seeks to apply the Creativity-In-Progress Reflection (CPR) on Proving (Savic et al., 2017) tool in a collaborative setting and evaluate its effectiveness in presenting a holistic image of a group’s creative proving process. Findings of this evaluation led to the suggestion of three modifications to the CPR on Proving for use in a collaborative setting.

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