Educative experiences in a games context: Supporting emerging reasoning in elementary school mathematics

Reasoning as a process supports students' success in mathematics, yet reports on its development in elementary school are scarce. An action research project with grade 5 and 6 students investigated how growth in reasoning occurred within abstract strategy games. Reasoning within the board game context was framed by Dewey's conceptualization of experience which emphasizes the importance of students' active participation and reflection. Through characteristics of interaction and continuity, students analyzed moves, generalized toward strategies, and convincingly justified effective approaches through accepted structures of reasoning. Elaborating on reasoning as a process, results show that students can grow in their capability to reason through multiple experiences of developing convincing arguments in an authentic context.