Juan D. Godino, Teresa Neto (CIDTFF) & Miguel R. Wilhelmi | in Proceedings of the 13th International Congress on Mathematical Education, pp. 227-228
Description of the Workshop:
An important objective in various curricular guidelines (e.g., NCTM, 2000) has been the enhancement of algebraic reasoning beginning in the first educational levels. This objective implies that we assume a new view of school algebra as not being limited to handling algebraic expressions. The effective implementation of this new conception of school algebra poses a challenge for the training of mathematics teachers, because few current training programs include the development of such a new vision. The objective of the workshop was to implement some practical activities aimed at recognizing the main features of school algebraic reasoning that can be used to train teachers to promote algebraic thinking in primary (Aké, Godino, Gonzato, & Wilhelmi, 2013) and secondary education (Godino et al., 2015). The wider view of school algebra that was presented and discussed takes into account the processes of generalization and symbolization as well as structural and functional modelling and analytical calculation. It also created a meaningful link between algebraic thinking in primary and secondary education.
