Development of algebraic thinking in early years teachers in the context of continuing education

Abstract

Discussions on the teaching of algebra in the early years of Elementary School have been the subject of research in recent decades and have intensified in recent years, especially with the new National Common Curricular Base. Investigations related to the training of teachers who teach mathematics in the early years become relevant as the teacher is responsible for organizing the teaching, being directly related to the students' learning process. In this article, we present a segment of a research, grounded in the Cultural-Historical perspective, that aimed to investigate the development of algebraic thinking in early years teachers, considering algebraic thinking as theoretical thinking mediated by algebraic concepts. The methodological aspects were based on historical-dialectical materialism, and data production was carried out through a formative experiment organized based on the Teaching Orientation Activity, with Learning Triggering Situations that considered the logical-historical movement of algebra, aiming at approaching the essence of algebra and algebraic conceptual nexus. The analysis segment presents scenes from the formative movement of one of the participating teachers in the experiment, allowing the identification of possible improvements in the way the teacher defines what algebra is, in addition to her understanding of fluency, variation of quantities, variable, and range of variation, in a movement from the general to the particular, that is, from the search for general rules that solve specific situations. Such movements of approaching conceptual nexus and the essence of algebra by the teacher refer to the process of developing algebraic thinking.