didactic empathy, scheme building, cube buildings, teacher training

This paper deals with the importance of didactic empathy of elementary mathematics teachers in connection with the current trend of constructivist way of teaching. The authors develop Hejny?s method of schema-oriented education and work in the didactical environment Cube Buildings. In this environment, they assign tasks to children aged 5-6, namely to build a cube building according to a scheme and display it in any way in a plane. Before carrying out the research the authors predict children?s solutions, both qualitative and quantitative. The qualitative prediction discriminates three basic conditions: correspondence with the scheme, building as a whole, and representation of the cube that is hidden in front view. Other qualitative conditions are observed with the last two conditions. The authors examine quantitative indicators in every qualitative condition defined in this way. Prediction, real data and correspondence rate are processed in tabular form.

This paper deals with the importance of didactic empathy of elementary mathematics teachers in connection with the current trend of constructivist way of teaching. The authors develop Hejny?s method of schema-oriented education and work in the didactical environment Cube Buildings. In this environment, they assign tasks to children aged 5-6, namely to build a cube building according to a scheme and display it in any way in a plane. Before carrying out the research the authors predict children?s solutions, both qualitative and quantitative. The qualitative prediction discriminates three basic conditions: correspondence with the scheme, building as a whole, and representation of the cube that is hidden in front view. Other qualitative conditions are observed with the last two conditions. The authors examine quantitative indicators in every qualitative condition defined in this way. Prediction, real data and correspondence rate are processed in tabular form.