A New Elementary Mathematics Curriculum: Practice, Learning and Assessment - Some Classroom Episodes

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present the new and innovative mathematics curriculum for elementary levels that is being implemented in the Portuguese basic education system (students from 1st to 9th grade) through an overview of an ongoing study of implementation/experimentation of this curriculum. A specific mechanism was implemented in the field to provide scientific and pedagogical support to the development of the new elementary mathematics curriculum (NPMEB) implementation at all grade levels and all over the country. In particular, the NPMEB is being experimented by a set of teachers that teach in their own classes and that have been trained and accompanied along the experience by the different authors of the program. We will focus on some classroom practices, sharing innovative and creative ideas of teachers and students, grounded on some of the tasks used by the teachers. The preliminary results suggest that some improvements are already visible, namely regarding students’ attitudes and mathematical competences and teachers’ practice