Abstract
Instructors often write feedback on students’ proofs even if there is no expectation for the students to revise and resubmit the work. It is not known, however, what students do with that feedback or if they understand the professor’s intentions. To this end, we asked eight advanced mathematics undergraduates to respond to professor comments on four written proofs by interpreting and implementing the comments. We analyzed the student’s responses using the categories of corrective feedback for language acquisition, viewing the language of mathematical proof as a register of academic English.
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Proofs A, B, C, and D were presented to the participants during the interviews. For each proof, first the interviewer presented to the participant a version of the proof without the professor’s comments, then later presented a version of the proof with the professor’s comments. The participants did not see the numbering of the comments. (PDF 1940 kb)
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Byrne, M., Hanusch, S., Moore, R.C. et al. Student Interpretations of Written Comments on Graded Proofs. Int. J. Res. Undergrad. Math. Ed. 4, 228–253 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40753-017-0059-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40753-017-0059-0