Il paradigma della programmazione logica per supportare lo sviluppo di abilità deduttive attraverso l’uso di un artefatto

The aim of this work is to explore the relationship between the manipulation of linguistic objects and the development of logical-deductive abilities, through teaching experiments in primary and secondary schools. Our theoretical framework is within the wide area of Mathematical Education about the use of artefacts in the teaching and learning processes. The elaborated activities are inspired to Logic Programming, which is a part of Mathematical Logic well suited to didactical purposes. The artefact of choice is the language, that we regard not only as a communication tool but as a “concrete object” to be manipulated according with assigned rules. In our experiments pupils manipulated magnetic cards, which were our artifact purposefully planned and constructed. In accordance with the theoretical framework, the obtained results show that even pupils from primary school can be involved in appropriate logical-deductive activities. [edited by Author]