The Processes and Products of Students' Generalizing Activity

Abstract

Generalization has been a major focus of curriculum standards and research efforts in mathematics education. While researchers have documented many productive contexts for generalizing and the generalizations students make, less attention has been given to the processes of generalizing. Moreover, there has been less work done with high school students in advanced mathematical contexts. To address these issues we use a model of learning that enables us to make explicit the processes of generalizing. We exemplify this model of learning in the context of an interview study with high school students working on cubic relationships.