Learning through patterns: a powerful approach to algebraic thinking

Abstract

We are engaged in a project named Mathematics and patterns in elementary schools: perspectives and classroom experiences of students and teachers. Our aim is to analyze the impact of an intervention centered on the study of patterns in the learning of mathematics concepts and on the development of communication and development of higher order thinking skills. In this paper we present part of an ongoing research with pre-service teachers concerning the development of teachers’ algebraic thinking, in particular how they move through pattern tasks involving generalization. We will present some of the tasks used in the didactical experience and some preliminary conclusions of its implementation in the mathematics didactics classes of a mathematics elementary teachers’ course of a School of Education.