Summary
As formal demonstrations in mathematics textbooks and classroom presentations provide conclusions of inquiries, students tend not to gain insight into the problem-solving process. Heuristics provides the latter, as it is a language of investigation that helps students choose potentially valuable mental actions in their problem-solving efforts. This would suggest that heuristics be seen as content worth sharing as part of students’ mathematics education. This Classroom Capsule demonstrates the value of heuristics with informing Oresme’s thinking in his developing an indirect proof that the harmonic series diverges.
Acknowledgment
I want to thank the reviewer for their helpful comments.