Despite the fact that in Brazil, schools rarely give attention to the importance of properly using strategies applied for mathematics in classroom, there are many works to show the importance of the ability in understanding them. One area of interest related to this issue is the didactic of mathematics in France. Here we give a panoramic vision of this area of study. This paper also analyzes a study of elementary algebra using a didactic sequence with balance scale to see if students make sense of the strategies learned. At the same time the usefulness of this cultural artifact used as an instructional aim is verified.
Didactic of Mathematics; Didactic sequence; Balance scale
