Provoking students to solve equations in a content-oriented fashion and not using routines by solving slightly modified standard tasks.

International audienceA lot of time in algebra lessons is spent on solving equations using routines. It is assumed that after many hours of training, these routines will be easily recalled and performed fluently. A study of 480 students in grade 10, which was undertaken at the beginning of a school year, showed that many students had forgotten these routines and were not able to reconstruct (alternative) solutions for simple equations. Content-oriented solving, which does not involve algorithms, is one way of helping students to solve equations using insight. Results from the same study indicate that this kind of problem solving can be promoted if standard tasks are modified slightly