Enhancing Students’ Written Mathematical Arguments Journal

Lepak, J. (2014). Enhancing students' written mathematical arguments. Mathematics teaching in the middle school, 20 (4)

This article gave good information on how to enhance students' mathematical arguments through peer-review activities. Mathematical arguments take an important practice of justification and reasoning. Students can justify their arguments through writing or speaking. The reformed curricula, common core, reflect this by having students 'explain why', 'convince', and 'justify'. Students need to understand which mathematical resources to draw from such as a graph, symbols, tables, and pictures to justify a conjecture.
One teacher, Ms. Hill, used peer-review activities invaliding rubrics to communicate mathematical resources to draw from when justifying a claim. The teacher found that on-going feedback and practice was essential for students to understand what type of statements could be used in justification. Ms. Hill introduced students with a mathematical problem. As she introduced the problem she drew a triangle on the board a labeled each part with words, pictures, and symbols. The students arguments must consist of all three parts of the triangle. Many students didn't provide a complete mathematical, justification to the claim. So she decided to use peer-review activities. She provided the students with rubrics to how the arguments were to be graded. Students gathered in groups and looked at each others arguments. Students had trouble understanding what other peers were trying to explain. The teacher explained that if you don't include everything and you don't think of the audience then the reader will not understand the claim. Ms. Hill found peer-review activities an effective way to teach how to communicate mathematical resources to justify a claim. Students' arguments became more coherent and strong.