In this presentation, we focus on a cooperative engineering at primary school, devoted to the teaching of Arithmetic at First Grade. In a first part, we describe how the notion of cooperative engineering (Sensevy et al., 2013) can be thought of in the general framework of comparative didactics, in particular through a Joint Action Theory (JATD) perspective (Sensevy, 2012, 2014; Ligozat, 2011; Tiberghien & Malkoun, 2009; Venturini & Amade-Escot, 2013). In the second part of the presentation, we sketch the main features of an actual cooperative engineering (Arithmetic and Comprehension at Elementary School-Arithmecole) in which a quasi-experimental design has been implemented in 120 classes, while enacting a new curriculum at First Grade, which can be characterized as a first initiation to a scientific modelling approach. In the third part of the presentation, we analyze the way in which a transactional process has been elaborated in order to transform current manners of teaching (Lundqvist et al., 2012) in new strategic teaching systems. In particular, we describe how the proposed curriculum has been progressively redesigned by the whole collective gathering of teachers and researchers. We perform this analysis by using some JATD notions (in particular didactic game, contract and milieu, genesis triplet) in the environment of the cooperative engineering. In the fourth part of the presentation, we focus on two special devices, which play a prominent role in the transformation of the teaching practices, the “Anticipation Group”, and the “Journal of Number”. By analyzing some teachings-learning practices and students’ productions within these devices, we show how these practices and productions witness important epistemological changes in teachers’ and students’ conceptions and actions. We conclude the presentation by highlighting how a comparative approach may provide the researcher with some conceptual tools, which can help to foster cooperation between teachers and researchers in various disciplines.

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