Università Roma Tre

The course unfolds on three plans.

The first plan deals with the cultural roots of teaching the basics of reckoning and elementary mathematics in the European tradition, with special emphasis on children's mathematical education. It discusses the ancient roots of both reckoning training and the formative view of mathematics, the evolution from the Middle Ages to the modern world (abacus schools, humanism, efforts to create an initiation into children's mathematics from the late eighteenth century onward, the twentieth-century crisis and transformation) and the traces of the past in today's school practice and contents.

The second plan concerns the examination of the child's path in the world of mathematics from the period of language acquisition up to the age of 10-11, within which both the institutional framework of preschool and the first 5 years of compulsory schooling are placed. The nodes of children's approach to number and geometry will be presented, in connection to language and motor experience and maturation, through educational activities in the home and school environment, between words and symbols, until the beginning of elementary school. The components of “dynamic teaching” (F. Enriques) in kindergarten and elementary school are discussed: the role of problems, conducting mathematical conversation and enhancing mimesis, the use of teaching materials, designing rhythm, variety of activities (individual and group; oral, written and workshop) and organizing content, promoting a cultural view of mathematics through history and relationship to the world around us, error in learning mathematics, and assessment in mathematics.

The third part deals with the network of conceptual nodes in elementary mathematics as an expanded context that includes and goes beyond numerical literacy. Single methods, commercially produced and teacher-prepared materials, sounds, audio, pictures and mathematical drawings, problems and oral, written and workshop activities are examined in this regard through exercises in analyzing and devising school activities.

A. Millán Gasca, Numeri e forme (Zanichelli)
A. Mazzitelli, A. Millán Gasca, L'ABC della matematica (Carocci)