Abstract:

Mathematics should be actively taught, stimulating students’ participation so that they learn mathematical concepts significantly and are then able to apply them to new situations. Math magic is a playful resource that promotes students’ motivation and develops their algebraic thinking. At first sight, the student realizes that the problems/charades seem to have something magical, but when they discover the mathematical tricks, through the algebrization of the problems, they consider them dynamic challenges.

To accomplish this kind of task in the classroom, it is essential that pre-service teachers develop and consolidate their algebraic reasoning through their initial formation. Therefore, the following research question has been considered: "Do pre-service teachers have well-defined algebraic knowledge to solve and implement mathematical-related tasks in the classroom?"

With this goal in mind, a study was carried out with the participation of 52 pre-service teachers, using a descriptive and interpretative qualitative methodology. At first, a questionnaire survey with closed questions was made available in Google Docs in order to characterize the participants.

At a second stage, two activities considered of math magic were applied:
(a) Think of a number and
(b) Symbolic Challenge. Categories of analysis had been elaborated in order to facilitate the study of participants' answers, through SPSS software.

After analysing and interpreting the results, it was concluded that in activity (a), only 17.3% of the participants were able to solve it using inverse operation concept, while the others were not able to solve it at all. In activity (b) only 1.9% had used the algebraic symbology to solve it, and the other participants either did not reach a solution or solved it through concrete examples.

According to these results, more Algebra contents need to be introduced in the initial formation of the pre-service teachers, so that they can develop their algebraic thought and later, in the classroom, implement activities such as math magic

Keywords:

Math magic, algebraic thought, inverse operation, pre-service teachers.