The intertwining of the students’ Algebraic Thinking development and the teacher’s professional constitution: revelations of the pedagogical narrative of a teacher-researcher

Abstract

This article aims to discuss the development processes of Algebraic Thinking of students in the first year of Elementary School, intertwined with the processes of professional constitution of the teacher-researcher, who focused on the research in/from their own practice and the teaching and student learning. This discussion is part of a doctoral research, with a qualitative approach, with financial support from Capes^[2], which focused on research in/from the practice itself and teaching learning intertwined with student learning. The investigation scenario belonged to the municipal network of a city in the countryside of São Paulo, a classroom composed of 26 students. The theoretical reflections are based on the historical-cultural perspective, on studies on Algebraic Thinking and on pedagogical narratives as a device for self-education and professional development. For the analysis, a pedagogical narrative is presented about a task that addresses a sequence with a recursive pattern and aims at the perception of regularity and the development of generalization strategies. The writing and narrative analysis, in the context of research in/of the practice itself, reveal evidence of the teacher’s professional development, as well as show that students in the first year of Elementary School, engaged in a social classroom culture of Mathematics class based on problematization, were able to generalize the pattern of sequences through their mother tongue.

Algebraic thinking; Pedagogical Narrative; Historical-cultural perspective; Perception of Regularities; Research in/from the Practice Itself