Conjecturing and Generalising is part of our Developing Mathematical Thinking collection.
In Developing Mathematical Thinking - Conjecturing and Generalising, we offer you advice on how to provide opportunities for students to conjecture and generalise.
Mathematicians are not only interested in answering questions, they also pose questions, make conjectures and test ideas.
Assuming students have been given the opportunity to explore a context, have noticed patterns and possible structures, and have worked systematically to generate more examples, they may then be in a position to conjecture, expressing ideas about what they think will happen more generally.
Often, students go from question to question to question, rather than going from question to question to general. Moving from the particular to the general is a key mathematical process, and the tasks below offer students opportunities to use specific examples as a springboard to generalising.
