Narration and analysis, from a logical viewpoint, of a scientific debate in a class of future maths teachers

Abstract

The use of scientific debates is still not widespread in mathematics classrooms, yet it is a useful tool enabling students to give meaning to mathematical knowledge. Debates give the opportunity to students to experience mathematics from a mathematician's point of view.

After a brief theoretical introduction to scientific debates, we give an account of a debate between future maths teachers about a spatial geomtry problem. We then proceed to analyse some arguments given by the students from the point of view of their logical content, showing the interest of scientific debates for the learning and practice of mathematical logic.