Algebra education: Research Results and Questions

Outline of the course:

The aim of this course is to review the results of the recently concluded ICMI study on the 'Future of the teaching and learning of algebra' and to identify important open areas of research. The course will consist of seminar presentations by the participants reporting the work of the ICMI study and related literature followed by an end-of-the-course term paper. From the themes of the ICMI study, the following themes have been selected

for more intensive focus:

1. Early algebra (i.e., algebra in the primary school)

2. Generalization and Reasoning in the context of symbols

3. The use of technology in algebra learning

Meetings will be held once a week starting 13th August 2004. The work done in the course will be followed up and supplemented by the pre-conference workshop that will be conducted by Kaye Stacey in the month of December. The course does not require any special pre-requisites beyond knowledge of school algebra.