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Big ideas

Younger students first encounter mathematical reasoning through observing similarities and differences between objects. As they develop and practise various types of inductive and deductive thinking, they move towards more formal reasoning and the writing of proofs.

Same and different

The use of the questions "What is the same?" and "What is different?" encourages mathematical reasoning.

Visualisation

Visualisation is a powerful mechanism.

Mathematical truth

One approach to stimulating students' reasoning skills is to focus on the truth of propositions.

If-then

If-then statements are used in deductive reasoning.

Deduction

What is deduction?

Proof

Students need to learn that conjecture is not the same as proof.