LEARNING TO TEACH ALGEBRA: An Italian experience with reference to technology

The Ministry of Education (MPI) and the Italian Mathematical Union (UMI) have carried out a project for in-service teacher training in algebra. It consists on three stages. First a group of 20 selected teachers attended a series of lectures. The lectures were videotaped. On the ground of these lectures the teachers produced didactic materials (forms, references, etc) recorded in a CD. The final products (videotape and CD) are sent to the schools all over the country to be shown to mathematics teachers. Four lecturers developed the subject (the teaching and learning of algebra) according to the following streams: · general educational issues based on international literature in the teaching and learning of algebra · algebra and information technology · a new approach to algebra through number theory · history and algebra. The present work reports the technological part of this teaching project. The use of a computer algebra system can improve the teaching of algebra, helping the teacher in several ways. However several difficulties can show up in the classroom use of CAS: elementary “pencil and paper” algebra rules and procedures are not always the same as the tasks performed by a machine, some problems arise in the relationship between algebra and graphics. The aim of the lessons and of material produced is: 1. to give the teacher a good knowledge of a CAS (Derive); 2. to explain the problems that can arise in the classroom use of symbolic math; 3. to give a hint for the solution of these problems