Cycles of Generalizing Activities in the Classroom

This study considers classroom situations in which students and the teacher co-contribute to promoting generalization. It specifically focuses on the ways in which students and a teacher in one classroom engage in generalizing arithmetic. Generalized arithmetic is an important route into early algebra (Kaput in Algebra in the Early Grades. Routledge, New York, 2008); its potential as a way to deepen students’ understandings of concepts of school arithmetic makes it an important focus of early algebra research. In the analysis we identified generalizations around properties of arithmetic and the actions that promoted these types of generalizations, and then considered the relationship between these actions . Analysis revealed that generalizations became platforms for further generalization.