Conhecimentos de estudantes de pedagogia sobre a resolução de problemas geométricos

Abstract

This research aimed to investigate and to analyze the knowledge about resolution of geometric problems that Pedagogy students, future teachers in the early years of elementary school, owns and which are necessary for effective practice in the classroom, emphasizing for geometric problems involving plane figures. Participated in the research 90 students enrolled in the first and fourth year of the Pedagogy course at the State University of Maringa. The data were collected through two informative questionnaires (I and II), a written test consisting of ten problems which involved geometry and interviews. The informative questionnaire (I) and the written test were applied to all research participants. The informative questionnaire (II) only for students enrolled in the fourth year of the course. After applying the instruments, written test were assigned notes in terms of the resolutions presented by the graduates according to the stages of the problem resolution proposed by Brito (2006): representation, planning, execution and monitoring. After showing the difficulties in each of the stages, selected four students enrolled in the fourth year of the course to be interviewed, the two who obtained the highest score and the two who obtained the lowest score because one of our specific objectives was to verify if the course of Pedagogy modifies / amplifies the geometry knowledge of future teachers. The semi-structured interviews were also analyzed based on the theory of Content Analysis and have allowed to present a view of the difficulties and knowledge of the undergraduates who are enrolled in the final year. The results showed that of the ten problems addressed the greatest difficulty of the students was related to the representation stage. The answers reported by the investigated conduct their speeches to a lag in relation to the mathematical contents, mostly the geometric. Of the participants, 59.52% (n = 42) indicate that the course of Pedagogy did not answer the expectations regarding the understanding about how to work the geometry through the resolution of problems.We contend that the proposed disciplines in the curriculum of the course are analyzed general nature and not very specific, with emphasis on theoretical aspects. The analysis of the data allowed us to check and to present an overview of the freshmen of the course of Pedagogy and those who are completing that course about their conditions to deal with the resolution of problems in teaching mathematics, specifically the geometric concepts. The poor performance (in terms of notes) of the subjects investigated in solving geometric problems, the motivation to study this subject, the lack of preparation to teach geometry, among other difficulties highlighted the course of the study revealed that the training of teachers who will work in the early years and minister mathematics discipline needs special attention