Reasoning and

Sense Making
Begins with the
Teacher
Lindsay M. Keazer and Rahul S. Menon
HAND PEELING BACK: ROBERTSROB/THINKSTOCK; CHALKBOARD: HXDBZXY/THINKSTOCK; STUDENTS AT CHALKBOARD: JEAN-MARIE GUYON/THINKSTOCK

Action
research leads
a classroom
teacher
to a new
approach and
a new role.

342 MATHEMATICS TEACHER | Vol. 109, No. 5 • December 2015/January 2016

Copyright © 2015 The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, Inc. www.nctm.org. All rights reserved.
This material may not be copied or distributed electronically or in any other format without written permission from NCTM.
F
ocus in High School Mathematics: Reasoning
and Sense Making (NCTM 2009) argues
that the practices of reasoning and
sense making are critical for developing
students’ mathematical literacy. Seven
mathematics teachers collaborated throughout
a school year to discuss the ideas proposed in
Reasoning and Sense Making (NCTM 2009) and put
them into practice through action research (Carr
and Kemmis 1986). Conducting action research,
with cycles of experimentation and reflection, helps
teachers align their practice with their vision.
Co-author Keazer was the facilitator of our
teacher group, and co-author Menon was an active
veteran teacher. In this article, we offer examples
from Mr. Menon’s classroom and describe how
he generated a culture of reasoning and sense
making, drawing on data collected throughout our
collaboration. Making any pedagogical changes
is not reducible to prescriptive steps. By sharing
examples and strategies, however, we hope that
Mr. Menon’s story will empower other teachers to
experiment with similar actions.
WHAT ARE REASONING
AND SENSE MAKING?
Reasoning is defined as “the process of drawing con-
clusions on the basis of evidence or stated assump-
tions” and sense making as “developing understand-
ing of a situation, context, or concept by connecting
Vol. 109, No. 5 • December 2015/January 2016 | MATHEMATICS TEACHER 343

“I never realized how reliant my
students had become on my thoughts
until I stopped talking.”
it with existing knowledge” (NCTM 2009, p. 4).
Although reasoning was previously linked with for-
mal proof (see, e.g., the Reasoning and Proof Pro-
cess Standard, NCTM 2000), reasoning and sense
making are thinking habits that should be inherent
in all mathematical activity. Table 1 presents three
levels that vary in formality, from less formal to
more formal. Each level is important, and students
need time to develop at each level before they can
shift to the next level, and they may shift among
levels in the same or different contexts.
Many high school students have limited expe-
rience engaging in reasoning and sense making.
Many students prefer to do mathematics by fol-
lowing procedures without understanding the
conceptual basis. When they do so, “students may
carry out procedures correctly but may also capri-
ciously invoke incorrect or baseless rules, such as
‘the square root of a sum is the sum of the square
roots’ ” (NCTM 2009, p. 12). Although these errors
seem rooted in the students’ actions, teachers influ-
ence engagement in reasoning and sense making in
important ways. A teacher can develop a culture of
reasoning and sense making by reducing opportuni-
ties for “learning” mathematics through memoriz-
ing rules and procedures and replacing them with
opportunities for authentic mathematical thinking
by making conjectures, evaluating others’ ideas,
and exploring connections.
A REASON TO MAKE CHANGES
Mr. Menon, who taught Algebra and Geometry
courses, observed that students preferred to blindly
Table 1 Three Levels of Understanding of Reasoning and
Sense Making
Empirical The role of empirical evidence that supports but does
not justify a conjecture; it works in a number of cases
Preformal The role of intuitive explanations and partial argu-
ments that lend insight into what is happening
Formal The role of formal argumentation (based on logic)
in determining mathematical certainty (proof) or in
making statistical inferences
Source: Focus in High School Mathematics: Reasoning and Sense Making (NCTM 2009,
pp. 10–11).
344 MATHEMATICS TEACHER | Vol. 109, No. 5 • December 2015/January 2016
follow his instructions rather than reason. To illus-
trate, he joked,
I swear that I could say, “Your lesson today is to
learn that 5 + 8 = 22.” And they will just write
5 + 8 = 22, and not even think a thing about what
they’re actually writing, whether it even makes
sense at all (audio transcript, 2010).
Mr. Menon recognized that his role was influ-
ential in students’ reliance on procedures. Stu-
dents often resisted his attempts to foster reason-
ing and sense making—either by waiting quietly
for a procedure or expressing frustration and
giving up. He exacerbated the problem, however,
when he gave in to students’ preferences and gave
them steps to follow. Regrettably, he realized that
sometimes he offered mathematical procedures
as a last resort when students seemed unable to
reason through the mathematics. As Webel (2010)
notes, “If mathematics cannot be understood, only
copied, then students have locked themselves out
of any mathematical situation in which they do
not already know exactly what to do” (p. 315).
Not only would students risk locking themselves
out of mathematical situations, but they would
also risk locking themselves out of particular col-
lege and career trajectories. Mr. Menon saw this
as a problem to be taken seriously and decided to
shift his role.
A NEW APPROACH
Changes were needed to remove the opportunities
where students relied on the teacher and instead
create opportunities for them to explore in-progress
reasoning with peers. Three important aspects were
involved: changing the tasks; developing a climate
for reasoning and sense making; and believing in
students and persisting despite resistance. We dis-
cuss each below. Mr. Menon began his efforts in his
Geometry class; as he learned from his experimenta-
tion, he made changes to his Algebra course as well.
Changing the Tasks
Instead of offering procedural steps to teach
mathematical objectives, Mr. Menon posed prob-
lems that promote reasoning. A key aspect of
these tasks was an open-ended prompt to “cap-
ture students’ curiosity” and “invite them to
speculate and to pursue their hunches” (NCTM
1991, p. 25). In Geometry lessons he referred to
figures and asked, “What do you think is true
here?” This simple question encouraged students’
curiosity, facilitated musing about various char-
acteristics, and allowed him to pursue, rather
than direct, students’ ideas.
At first, the students waited silently for more
specific directions, but eventually someone would
offer an observation. After one or two students did
so, more would share their ideas. Peers’ conjec-
tures—regardless of whether they were true—pro-
vided students with a need to engage in reasoning
and sense making as they attempted to justify or
disprove the statements.
Developing a Climate for
Reasoning and Sense Making
In addition to changing the tasks, Mr. Menon
also spent time developing his classroom cli-
mate to encourage the sharing of in-progress
reasoning and sense making. This involved
establishing new classroom norms: Every idea
(right or wrong) is valuable; and the classroom
community, not just the teacher, is the math-
ematical authority. Tasks with open-ended
prompts invited students to share wonderings
and hunches, and Mr. Menon praised students
for every idea. He emphasized that all ideas were
worth consideration and could move mathemati-
cal understanding forward even when disproved.
He attempted to remain neutral and avoid evalu-
ation, shifting that responsibility to the class
with responses like “Sounds pretty good—can we
prove it?” or “What do you think?”
In an attempt to deter students’ tendencies to
accept his ideas without a second thought, he some-
times proposed an incorrect—but somewhat believ-
able—mathematical conjecture to the class. He
described the rationale behind this approach:
I want to make it so that they cannot just memo-
rize what I say, because what I say may not be
correct. And they have to think, “Is this right? Is
this not? Why does this work? Why does it not?”
And hopefully they’ll start spitting out ideas. I’ve
been starting to fire their questions back to them,
instead of just answering the questions. I just say,
“Well, what do you guys think?” I know sometimes
I accidentally answer the questions, because I’m a
teacher, and I always thought that’s what I’m sup-
posed to do. (Audio transcript, 2010)
Shifting the teacher’s role away from the math-
ematical authority meant that students could no
longer depend on him to do the reasoning and sense
making, and they had more opportunities to engage
as they critiqued one another’s ideas.
Believing in Students (and
Persisting Despite Resistance)
Midway through his action research, Mr. Menon
wrote in his journal, “I never realized how reliant
my students had become on my thoughts until I
stopped talking.” Initially, few students were will-
ing to engage; many sat silently, waiting for some-
one else to come up with a solution. Some students
would become frustrated when their question was
diverted back to the class. Over time, however, more
students grew accustomed to the new norms. Yet
some were “slipping through the cracks” and avoid-
ing reasoning and sense-making opportunities.
To address this issue, Mr. Menon established
a third norm: Every student is expected to par-
ticipate. One simple strategy that yielded positive
results was to regularly call on every student to
share ideas, even those who did not volunteer. At
first, this technique caught students by surprise,
but after the routine was established, they became
more attentive. He experimented with drawing
names written on ice pop sticks out of a jar and was
surprised to see that students “straightened up in
their seats” when they realized that they could be
called on at any time.
Students tried subtle ways to get him to give
hints or evaluate their ideas. He developed strate-
gies—keeping silent, withholding answers, going
along with a wrong idea, posing students’ questions
back at the class, being a scribe, and getting students
to bounce ideas off of one another—to avoid his for-
mer tendencies. These techniques proved helpful as
he shifted his role away from giving directions and
toward students’ reasoning and sense making.
THREE LESSONS
In the following sections, we illustrate these ideas
by describing three geometry lessons.
The Triangle Inequality
Mr. Menon sketched the triangle in figure 1a on
the board and asked, “Anyone have any ideas about
this figure?” This question was met with a long
silence. Instead of breaking the silence with hints
or directions, he changed the 50 to 500 and asked
again, hoping to foster discussion. Finally a student
responded.
Student: 500 is too big.
Teacher: Why?
Student: It just is.
Unsatisfied, Mr. Menon posed the question to the
rest of the class. Now they had a focus (the side
length 500 might be too big), and more students
Later, students’ conjectures shifted
to generalizations reaching the
preformal level.
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(a)
(b)
Fig. 1 Labeled side lengths sparked conjectures that led to
the triangle inequality theorem (a). Students used triangle
congruence postulates to justify conjectures (b).
joined in. “The 10 and 20 sides wouldn’t reach.”
“You’d have to make the 500 smaller again.”
Rather than affirming or evaluating their con-
jectures, he revoiced what was said and left that
responsibility to the students.
Next, a student came to the board and redrew
the triangle to scale to demonstrate why this trian-
gle could not exist. Mr. Menon pressed the class for
more clear justification, and after several contribu-
tions he wrote on the board:
The biggest side of the triangle could not be
more than the sum of the other two sides.
The students seemed satisfied with this conjecture.
Mr. Menon, however, was not.
He changed the longest side length to 30 and
asked, “How about this triangle?” After more
silence, one student said, “This triangle is okay.”
Another student responded, “No it’s not, because it
would just form a straight line.” After a couple of
346 MATHEMATICS TEACHER | Vol. 109, No. 5 • December 2015/January 2016
minutes, the class reached consensus and revised
their conjecture:
The length of the largest side of a triangle must
be less than the sum of the lengths of the other
two sides.
Mr. Menon announced that this statement was
often called the triangle inequality theorem, and the
students’ pride in their discovery was visible.
In this lesson, students participated in reasoning
and sense making primarily at the empirical and
preformal levels (see table 1). The choice to pose a
triangle with specific side lengths prompted empiri-
cal thinking about the specific case. Later, as stu-
dents justified why such a triangle could not exist,
their conjectures shifted to generalizations reaching
the preformal level with “intuitive explanations
and partial arguments” (NCTM 2009, p. 10) about
which triangles were possible. Students with lim-
ited experience engaging in reasoning and sense
making, regardless of their age, will need opportu-
nities to develop an understanding of empirical and
preformal levels before they build up to the formal
level.
Properties of Kites
The question “What do you know about a kite?”
launched a lesson on the properties of kites. Stu-
dents associated the term with a flying toy rather
than a geometric figure, yet they could draw a rea-
sonable sketch. Mr. Menon provided the definition
to further clarify their understanding: “To be an
‘official’ kite, it has to be a quadrilateral with two
pairs of congruent, adjacent sides.”
Presented with the kite in figure 1b and the
typical “What do you think is true here?” students
offered several ideas, most of which were true. Mr.
Menon consistently AB responded
≅ CB with “Sounds pretty
good. Can we prove it?” The first idea was to prove
AB ≅ CB
the largest pair of triangles congruent ( ABD ≅
AD ≅ CD
CBD). Students contributed ideas about three sets
of congruent sides ( AB ≅ CB and AD ≅ CD by the
definition of a kite; BD ≅ BD by the reflexive prop-
erty) and argued that the triangles were congruent
AD ≅ CD BD ≅ BD
using the side-side-side postulate learned in a previ-
ous lesson.
Next, students arguedBD ≅ that
BD corresponding angles
were congruent (using a previously established
theorem that corresponding parts of congruent
triangles are congruent) and subsequently justified
that pairs of smaller triangles created by the diago-
nals were congruent.
Mr. Menon hoped that students would also
justify that the diagonals were perpendicular
and that angles 1 and 2 were right angles. These
observations were not immediately apparent to
the students, but when
asked, “What else might
be true about angles
1 and 2?” one stu-
dent justified the
angles’ congruence,
and another justified that they
were supplementary. “Do we know
anything about the measure of those
angles?” After some silence, a few students
offered ideas about the angles being right and
having a measure of 90°. They discussed briefly
how to justify right angles and perpendicular
diagonals.
In a similar approach with trapezoids, students
justified the properties of a general trapezoid by
drawing diagonals and proving that the paired tri-
angles created were congruent.
In this lesson, students participated in reason-
ing and sense making at the preformal and formal
levels (see table 1). This task required students to
reason generally about kites, and many verbal jus-
tifications broached a formal level with the use of
argumentation and logic to determine mathematical
certainty.
Inscribed Angles in Circles
In a lesson begun by sketching an inscribed
angle, Mr. Menon asked how students thought
inscribed angle might be defined. “An angle
formed by two chords,” said one student, which
Mr. Menon recorded. “Do we like that?” he
asked the rest of the class. Another student
questioned the vertex location of an inscribed
angle, and Mr. Menon confirmed that the vertex
is always on the circle. The students elaborated
on their working definition until they had accu-
rately captured the idea. This process of ask-
ing students to develop definitions, when time
allowed, helped them better understand the cases
included within a term.
Next, he sketched the diagram shown in figure
2a and asked, “What’s the measure of w?”
(a) (b)
Fig. 2 Sketches guided students to develop a theorem about inscribed angles.
ROB_LAN/THINKSTOCK
Student 1: Same as x.
Student 2: It has to be smaller, because
a central angle would have the same mea-
sure as w, and the inscribed angle looks smaller
than the central angle.
Mr. Menon sketched the central angle that cut
off arc w. Students agreed that the central angle
measure was equal to the measure of w, on the
basis of a previously accepted idea. They also
agreed that the inscribed angle appeared smaller.
One student suggested that x is “half of w because
it moved twice the distance.” Another student
attempted to elaborate on this idea, arguing that the
inscribed angle was twice as far from the arc and
should have a measure that is half as much.
Mr. Menon paused. “Can we prove this with
known means? Let’s move away from distance.
I’m going to draw a new picture.” He sketched the
diagram shown in figure 2b, a case that would
allow students to use diameters and radii to jus-
tify what they already thought was true. Students
noticed that the radii are congruent segments, form-
ing an isosceles triangle with congruent base angles,
and that the central angle is an exterior angle of the
triangle. After a flurry of ideas, students eventually
used an exterior angle theorem to justify that
(c) (d)
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Frequent on-the-spot decisions
had to be made, such as when
to provide a counterexample.
w = x + x = 2x and that the inscribed angle was half
the measure of the arc that it cut off.
Because the previous proof was specific to
inscribed angles formed by a diameter, Mr. Menon
returned to the original sketch and asked, “Look at
this inscribed angle. Is it also true here?” A student
suggested drawing auxiliary radii, and Mr.Menon
proposed the diagram shown in figure 2c. Students
used their previously justified knowledge to argue
that a and b were each half the measure of the arcs
they cut off. Using angle addition, students saw
that the inscribed angle formed by their sum was
also half the measure of the arc it cut off.
Mr. Menon announced, “You just proved theo-
rem 10-6 from your text. What do you think theo-
rem 10-6 says?” After several contributions and
pushing for refinement, he recorded the students’
responses: “The measure of an inscribed angle is
half the measure of its intercepted arc.” “Can you
just tell us?” begged a student, who wondered what
theorem 10-6 really said. “You guys just did,” their
teacher confirmed.
Then Mr. Menon drew the diagram shown in
figure 2d. “What do you think is true about this
figure?” Students saw the many intersecting chords
and groaned. But one student piped up:
Student 1: All of them equal the same thing.
Teacher: All of what?
Student 1: Those three vertex [inscribed] angles.
They all intersect [intercept] the same arc.
Teacher: Seth has suggested that these inscribed
angles have the same measure. Do you agree?
Student 2: No.
Teacher: What if I label this m°?
Labeling the intercepted arc seemed to help
students observe the relationship for all three
inscribed angles. “Oh, yeah!” said the previous
student, suddenly convinced. After a brief justifica-
tion, they agreed on this statement:
Inscribed angles that intercept the same arc or
congruent arcs are congruent.
Throughout this lesson, students demonstrated
reasoning and sense making at the preformal and
formal levels. Students had grown accustomed
to the question, “What do we know is true about
348 MATHEMATICS TEACHER | Vol. 109, No. 5 • December 2015/January 2016
this figure?” and thus less wait time was needed
to elicit thoughtful conjectures for the rest of the
class to consider. The argument that the inscribed
angle had half the measure of the intercepted arc
“because it was twice as far away” was preformal
in nature and difficult to justify. Additional figures
moved student thinking forward and made the jus-
tification accessible. A subsequent figure extended
student thinking, and students could apply their
argument from the previous scenario to justify the
new one.
This lesson’s series of strategically-posed figures
engaged students in reasoning and sense making
to arrive at the desired arguments in an incremen-
tal way. It is important to notice that the use of
these figures with open-ended questioning allowed
students’ own reasoning and sense making to be
a driving force in moving the lesson forward. The
arguments used with figures 2b and 2c broached
the level of a formal understanding of reasoning
and sense making, with argumentation based on
logic and previously known theorems and postu-
lates to arrive at new conclusions.
TWO DILEMMAS
Despite the visible progress in students’ reasoning
and sense making as a result of the changes that
Mr. Menon made, several ongoing dilemmas threat-
ened to interfere with their success. We describe
two dilemmas that required an ongoing balancing
act.
Being a “Guide on the Side”
Midway through the school year, Mr. Menon
described the importance of letting students’ ideas
drive the lesson and the challenge of balancing
that with the need to move their thinking forward
when the lesson was not reaching the objectives in
a timely way.
I can clearly tell that there are situations where I
want to and have to specifically keep my mouth
shut. For the most part, it’s gone pretty well. I
allowed a wrong concept to sit on my board during
the brief notes time for like 15 minutes . . . Mean-
while, I’m wondering what to do to make them
think about this further. Usually, there’s somebody
who’s dying to prove somebody else wrong. But
nobody said anything. And then, finally, somebody
timidly raised her hand, “Shouldn’t it be 10?” And
then it was good. I was able to shut up and let the
class take it from there. (Audio transcript, 2011)
To hold students responsible for reasoning and
sense making, Mr. Menon refrained from jump-
ing in to affirm or correct students’ proposals. He
wanted students to evaluate and critique their
peers’ ideas. Doing so required improvisational
teaching—monitoring progress toward the mathe-
matical learning goals and considering ways to fur-
ther the discussion. Frequent on-the-spot decisions
had to be made, such as how long to allow a discus-
sion to continue in a particular direction, when to
provide a counterexample, and when to pose a dif-
ferent task to extend thinking. It was impossible to
carry out a perfect scenario the same way every day
and in every class. This improvisational approach
allowed room for improvement, which he continues
to refine every year.
Quality vs. Quantity
Another ongoing dilemma was balancing the time it
took to foster productive discussions with the con-
straint of a demanding curriculum and limited class
time. Mr. Menon summarized this dilemma:
[ The students] get into such great discussions, and
it takes a long time. And all of a sudden there’s
five minutes left, and I still have two more things
to cover. On multiple occasions I’ve had to steer
the discussion much faster than I knew I should.
But I also didn’t want to say, “OK, we’ll continue
this tomorrow. No homework today, let’s finish
the rest tomorrow, and then do this every other
day.” Because they would! I mean, that would
be good for them. I just wouldn’t be able to get to
everything I need to. In some cases, I should have
stopped something earlier, because they started
going on off on a tangent, but it’s a really thought-
ful tangent, and they’re doing really well with it.
But I feel restricted. (Audio transcript, 2011)
The pressure to “steer” or “commandeer” stu-
dent-driven discussions and push toward particular
objectives captures the dilemma of balancing the
quality of student-led discussions with the quantity
of learning objectives in the curriculum.
THEN AND NOW
While writing this article, we discussed the ques-
tion, When does preformal reasoning and sense
making become formal? Students can reason
formally, regardless of whether they record their
argument in the format of a formal proof. In many
cases, depending on a lesson’s objectives, Mr.
Menon chooses to emphasize developing students’
thought processes and verbal arguments over
assessing written-proof skills.
For Mr. Menon, fostering student reasoning
and sense making started with conscious changes
that took time to develop. They required new roles
for both teacher and students. Now, after continu-
ing his changes over several years, his students
know that the question “What do you think is
true here?” means “There is something true here,
and I’m not going to tell you what it is.” Less wait
time is needed because important norms have
been established. Mr. Menon relishes the moment
that follows, describing it as “furrowed eyebrows
ensue.” His students debate, refine one another’s
conjectures, and learn not to accept his own pro-
posals at face value in a classroom culture that
has dramatically increased his own enjoyment of
teaching.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Anderson, Gary, Kathryn Herr, and Ann Nihlen.
2007. Studying Your Own School: An Educator’s
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Carr, Wilfred, and Stephen Kemmis. 1986. Becoming
Critical: Education, Knowledge, and Action Research.
London: Falmer.
Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI).
2010. Common Core State Standards for Math-
ematics. Washington, DC: National Governors
Association Center for Best Practices and the
Council of Chief State School Officers. http://
www.corestandards.org/wp-content/uploads
/Math_Standards.pdf
Keazer, Lindsay M. 2012. “Mathematics Teach-
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in Their Teaching.” PhD diss. ProQuest (AAT
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National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
(NCTM). 1991. Professional Standards for Teaching
Mathematics. Reston, VA: NCTM.
———. 2000. Principles and Standards for School Math-
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———. 2009. Focus in High School Mathematics: Rea-
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Webel, Corey. 2010. “Shifting Mathematical Author-
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Teacher 104 (4): 315–18.
LINDSAY M. KEAZER, lmkeazer@gmail
.com, teaches mathematics methods
courses at Central Connecticut State
University in New Britain and collabo-
rates with mathematics teachers. She
enjoys supporting teachers as they make
self-initiated changes in their teaching
to foster students’ reasoning and sense
making. RAHUL S. MENON, rmenon@tsc.k12.in.us,
teaches mathematics at McCutcheon High School in
Lafayette, Indiana. He enjoys finding and sharing
mathematical facts and puzzles to challenge stu-
dents, friends, family, and the occasional stranger.
Vol. 109, No. 5 • December 2015/January 2016 | MATHEMATICS TEACHER 349