Discussing Addition and Subtraction Operations with Elementary School Teachers

Abstract

The article discusses part of the data of an investigation carried out with elementary school teachers. Among the formative objectives we had, we emphasize that the purpose of this study is to understand how the learning of addition and subtraction operations occurred from the apprehension of the internal structure of the numbering system through teaching tasks developed with the fourteen students attending the “Mathematics contents and teaching processes” subject of the 4th period of Pedagogy at Goiás State University - Quirinópolis Campus. In search for answers as how this learning happened, a formative experiment was organized, named here as research methodological path. In this bias, the experiment sought to create situations to make the learning of these operations feasible. The research method chosen was the dialectical and historical materialism one. Concerning such choices, we have a structure of analysis composed of unity, episode, scenes, and flashes. The results give us indications that the undergraduates understood that the numbering systems have an internal logic that is valid for all the numerical bases composing them, and that, from this internal connection of the numbering system on, it is possible to carry out the addition and subtraction operations, as part of this internal system operationalization. We concluded that the undergraduates have appropriated the essential relation of the numbering systems, the formation of their orders, and the genesis of addition and subtraction operations.

Keywords:
Elementary School Teacher Education; Numbering System; Addition and Subtraction; Formative Experiment