TOWARDS AN APPROACH TO TEACHERS’ PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: HOW TO WORK WITH ALGEBRAIC THINKING IN THE EARLY YEARS

Abstract

This article presents the first intervention cycle of a design-based research program on teacher professional development. The study aims to understand how the formative process helped teachers to understand what algebraic thinking means and how to work with it in the early years. Data analysis was based on three principles of design: teacher’s role and actions, professional learning tasks for teachers, and discursive interactions among participants. The results suggest that these design principles contributed to teachers’ understanding of the meaning of algebraic thinking and how to promote it in elementary students.