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Seeking, Using, and Expressing Structure in Numbers and Numerical Operations: A Fundamental Path to Developing Early Algebraic Thinking

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Book cover Teaching and Learning Algebraic Thinking with 5- to 12-Year-Olds

Part of the book series: ICME-13 Monographs ((ICME13Mo))

Abstract

The dominant focus on generalizing in the development of algebraic thinking has to a large extent obscured the process of seeing structure . While generalization-oriented activity remains highly important in algebra and early algebra, and in fact includes a structural component, equal attention needs to be paid to the complementary process of looking through mathematical objects and to decomposing and recomposing them in various structural ways. With the aim of instigating greater attention to structure and elaborating more widely on its meaning with respect to developing early algebraic thinking , this chapter explores the notion of structure and structural activity from various perspectives, and then presents a research-based example of 12-year-olds seeking structure within an activity involving factors, multiples, and divisors.

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  1. Département de Mathématiques, Université du Québec à Montréal, 201 avenue du Président-Kennedy, local PK-5151, Montreal, QC, H2X 3Y7, Canada

    Carolyn Kieran

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  1. Département de Mathématiques, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada

    Carolyn Kieran

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Kieran, C. (2018). Seeking, Using, and Expressing Structure in Numbers and Numerical Operations: A Fundamental Path to Developing Early Algebraic Thinking. In: Kieran, C. (eds) Teaching and Learning Algebraic Thinking with 5- to 12-Year-Olds. ICME-13 Monographs. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68351-5_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68351-5_4

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