Resolução de problemas matemáticos - estudo de caso com professoras dos anos iniciais em escola alagoana

Abstract

The present work is a case study about the mathematical problem solving in the classroom of the early years of elementary school. The research was with educators, teachers from early years, responsible for the teaching of the first mathematical notions in school life of a child, however, they do not have specific training in the area of knowledge. The general objective of this work was to investigate how these teachers work in mathematical problem solving classes from the 1st to the 5th year of a public school. The survey investigated the teaching practice of 5 teachers of classes from the 1st to the 5th year of elementary school in a public school situated in the suburbs of the city of Maceió-Alagoas. As theoretical contribution about troubleshooting, we used Polya (2006), Pozo (1998), Panizza (2006), Itacarambi (2010), Echeverria (1998), and Carvallho (2007, 2009, 2010). About the training of teachers, we used Shulman (1986) and Tardif (2010). The data collection instruments were the observation of math lessons, interview with the teachers, and the school's documents. In this research we observed the similarities of the teaching practice, among them, the linear practice of teaching, the great focus on mathematical operations at the expense of the understanding of the problem, the inadequated mathematical language, the work with problem solving in terms of literacy, the encouragement of the practice of identification of keywords in the utterance of the problems, and the lack of knowledge about the mathematical content that is one of the most important aspects to consider in this work. There are indications that the teachers’ knowledge on the fundamental properties of mathematics is weak: about the basic ideas related to the four operations, about the types of problem-solving and consequently on the didactics adopted for mathematics classes during the use of problem-solving. In the situations we observed, the work with problem solving as a means of teaching was not emphasized. This analysis showed that the teachers of early years need to have clarity about the use of mathematical problem solving as a teaching strategy, besides the knowledge of the mathematical content for the development of students ' learning.