Understanding the teacher’s role in supporting students’ generalization when investigating sequences

2009

The aim of this paper is to analyse the teacher’s role in supporting students’ work in mathematical investigations, in particular, with one task which involves generalisation in sequences in the 8th grade, and the constraints the teacher faces when performing this role. The lessons were audio and video recorded and the teacher was interviewed in order to understand her options and perspectives about the classroom events. Five aspects of the teacher’s role have being identified regarding her support to students’ generalisation, namely, suggesting them to: display more steps in the sequence; draw a different representation, usually a table; establish a relation between the term and its positi…