Aprendizagem baseada em problemas: uma proposta metodológica para o ensino de educação financeira no ensino médio por meio de unidades de ensino potencialmente significativas

Abstract

The present work aims to investigate whether a Potentially Significant Teaching Unit, a UEPS, based on the theory of Meaningful Learning can contribute to the construction of the concept of investments in a 2nd grade high school class at a school in Maceió, in the State of Alagoas. For this purpose, through a qualitative research based on an intervention approach, a UEPS was elaborated, composed of a didactic sequence that presents important elements for the resignification of the students' previous knowledge around the approached theme, aiming to develop, still, the criticality of the students in light of the assumptions of Critical Mathematics Education. In this sense, we sought to encourage students to build and develop argumentative and reflective processes in the face of problem situations that involved choices and risks in relation to the investment scenario, providing an environment in which they are protagonists of the learning process, based on the use of the active methodology of Problem-Based Learning, the PBL. The proposed didactic sequence presents six blocks of activities involving the concepts that make up the investment area, such as types of investments, angel investor, decision making, venture capital, risks, ending with activities that propose a more practical contact with the simulators of investments and the construction of a conceptual map, the main evaluation instrument in a UEPS, in addition to questionnaires, which served to identify and characterize the profile and mathematical knowledge of the students, also enabling the evaluation of the UEPS, identifying the signs of financial literacy after the activities performed. For data analysis, content analysis was used, creating categories, so that we could observe that students have text interpretation gaps that hinder the process of developing criticality for these students, directly reflecting on the construction of concepts of Financial Education, in particular, investment concepts. To this end, the results in the activity blocks showed an evolution with regard to this interpretation of the presented problems, so that the students were able to attribute new meanings to the concepts of investor, risks and choices and angel investor, in what needed to be reinforced throughout the activities, until signs of significant learning of these concepts were identified based on elements such as the conceptual map. In addition, it should be noted that with regard to the PBL, the students rejected some steps, such as the description of the problems and the strategy to solve the problem situations, so that the hypothesis of a possible modification in the steps of the PBL is raised. . In view of this, the results confirmed the fact that the proposed UEPS can contribute significantly to the construction of the concept of investments in High School, re-signifying students' prior knowledge, in addition to developing their criticality in situations in which they need to expose their arguments to justify certain choices, as well as placing the investment theme as essential in the approach of Financial Education in High School, breaking with the paradigm that to invest a high value is necessary. On the other hand, working with the PBL highlighted the students' difficulty in following problem-solving scripts, since some steps of the PBL are neglected by the students, who, in turn, suggested a reconstruction of the methodology with reduced steps.