TEACHING OPERATIONS WITH WHOLE NUMBERS USING A PROBLEMATIZATION METHODOLOGY

Abstract

Introduction: The Education Secretary of Sao Paulo state has applied a bimonthly test that focuses on the skills that were appropriated (or not) by the students of basic school. Based on that results, the Programa Institucional de Bolsa de Iniciacao a Docencia (PIBID) group of Universidade de Franca (UNIFRAN) selected deficient skills presented by a 7 th grade class (Elementary School) of a public school from Franca city. Those skills involved basic operations with whole numbers, especially negative ones. Methods: A didactic sequence was elaborated in order to develop those deficient skills, and it was based on the methodology of Three Pedagogic Moments (TPM). In the first moment (“initial problematization”), the students watched a cartoon whose characters participated of situations involving thermal sensations, and there was a discussion about it. In the second moment (“knowledge organization”), it was proposed that the students realized temperature measurements (positive and negative whole numbers). Then, basic operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) with whole numbers were discussed, especially with negative numbers. In the third moment (“knowledge application”), the students participated of a game. Each student had a whole number fixed on his T-shirt, and then they had to group themselves in order to obtain a number that was asked by the Pibid members. Results : Together the students showed a considerable learning of the proposed content. They showed motivation with the didactic sequence, which positively influenced the learning process. Conclusion: The TPM methodology was successfully applied in the development of skills involving operations with whole numbers.