RECONCEIVING STRATEGIC KNOWLEDGE IN PROVING FROM THE STUDENT'S PERSPECTIVE

Strategic knowledge in proof writing can be thought of as the heuristics which help a student to determine which strategies, theorems and definitions are helpful and when to use them while proving. Earlier Weber (2001) noted that students often lack the necessary strategic knowledge to prove statements; however, Weber's strategic knowledge does not take into account the goals of the prover. We propose a student-centered (or prover-centered) view of strategic knowledge, where the goals that the students are trying to achieve by proving are considered in the analysis of what constitutes strategic knowledge. We illustrate how viewing strategic knowledge in this way can allow us to interpret the proving behaviors of two students in an introductory real analysis course.