Teaching of Math is transformed from Elementary school

SEG brings together teachers and specialists at the Forum “Mathematical Foundations: from the foundations to education transformation”

Guanajuato/Gto News

With the purpose of strengthening the pedagogical skills and disciplinary mastery of teachers, the Secretary of Education of Guanajuato (SEG) held the Forum “Mathematical Foundations: from the foundations to education transformation”, at the facilities of the Center for Research in Mathematics (CIMAT).

Around 100 teachers and education figures from different regions of the State participated in this academic space, designed to share knowledge, experiment with innovative teaching strategies and generate proposals that contribute to the design of a State program to strengthen the foundations of mathematical thinking.

The first day of the forum, entitled “Foundations,” was dedicated to the development of number sense, concrete operational thinking, and logical reasoning. The keynote address was given by Dr. Hector Raymundo Flores Cantu, an industrial mathematician, science communicator, Nuevo Leon delegate for the Mathematics Olympiad, and professor at the Autonomous University of Nuevo Leon, who emphasized the importance of developing logical thinking from the early grades of elementary school.

Flores Cantu addressed various myths related to mathematics and highlighted the value of mistakes as an authentic learning tool.

Cantu pointed out that it can be more enriching to present a problem and motivate students to find five different ways to solve it, as this allows one to understand their thought processes, encourage argumentation, and analyze different solution procedures.

Subsequently, three working groups were developed: in the first one called “Seeing relationships before calculating: sense of structure and early algebra with rods”, led by Dr. Santiago Palmas and Dr. Ismael Cuevas Morales, the participants explored the Cuisenaire rods to identify relationships, structures and mathematical patterns.

The second panel on the topic “From the concrete to the abstract: multiple representations”, led by Dr. Thalia Elizabeth Venegas Gil and Andrea Paola Hernandez Garcia, analyzed different ways of representing the same mathematical idea: concrete material, drawings, number line, language and symbolic representation.

In the third table entitled “From material to mathematical activity: design of instructions, scaffolding and feedback”, coordinated by Dr. Valentina Munoz Porras, academic and researcher of CIMAT, participants worked with geometric blocks to reflect on instructions, support, learning possibilities and feedback strategies.

On the second day, under the theme “Transformation”, strategies were addressed to strengthen the teaching of mathematics through evaluation, observation and teacher support.

Dr. Ana Laura Barriendos Rodriguez presented ProMate, a tool to guide and provide feedback on education practice. The creation of math clubs and the responsible use of artificial intelligence to design resources and support the assessment and monitoring of learning were also explored.

With this forum, the Secretary of Education of Guanajuato reaffirms its commitment to the continuous training of teachers, promoting new strategies to strengthen the teaching of mathematics from the early years of elementary education.

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