A Learning Environment for Promoting Structured Algebraic Thinking in Children

Although the notion of generality is central in mathematics and science, beingable to identify and express general patterns and/or articulate structures is one of the main difficulties for children when they learn mathematics. This paper presents a step towards a set of tools that addresses this problem by encouraging students to connect between actual activities within the task and expressions of generality. The paper introduces a novel tool - ShapeBuilder - and describes how it can be used in the context of a well-known generalisation activity: tiling a pond. Insights gained from various small-scale exploratory studies with children are discussed followed by a description of how we expect this tool to develop in future work.