“… Then It Looks Beautiful” – Preformal Proving in Primary School

Abstract

With a focus on the primary level, the project “Prim-E-Proof” pursues the goal of developing learning environments to support proving skills in mathematics education at primary school. The aim is to support teaching and learning processes with substantial learning environments in which – if useful – digital media (free applets on tablet PCs) are applied. In this paper, the state of the art of a learning environment for proving the theorem “the sum of two odd numbers is always even” is described and evaluated. A single case study explores the question of which epistemic actions are recognizable in a primary school child’s activities according to Abstraction in Context to provide indications for the further development of the learning environment and the applet.