Banca de DEFESA: SUZY KELLY DA SILVA

GAMES IN ALGEBRA TEACHING: AN EXPERIENCE IN ELEMENTARY EDUCATION

Algebra Teaching. Elementary Education. Games as resource. Activity workbook.

This project is the result of a research developed in a master degree in Natural Science and Mathematics Teaching at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte. The project had as the key issue: how the use of games in algebra teaching in elementary education classes may to affect mathematics classes? In order to answer it, we developed an educational product in the shape of an activity workbook based in games focused to first-degree equations teaching. The choice of this theme emerged from a professional disturbance of the researcher, besides being a field identified for several researches as a high difficulty for elementary students, frequently creating obstacles to the learning of new contents. Based on this reality, we elaborated a sequence of activities supported in games to offer first-degree equations teaching. We also analyzed the impacts of these classes in this context, researching if this approach could reduce the rejection and the difficulties encountered by students learning this theme. We choose to utilize games because they can to provide a meaningful learning during mathematics classes, as long as planned carefully. We based our games in the difficulties identified through the literature about this theme teaching, such as the bad comprehension of the unknown concept, the transition from the common language to the algebraic in mathematics problems, and the meanings related to the equal sign. We applied the activities in three regular classes in ninth year of elementary school at Vera Cruz, RN, in order to evaluate the potentials of these games sequences. The application was conducted by the teacher of the classes and it was monitored by the author of this project. Besides watching the classes in order to elaborate a field diary, we analyzed letters written by the students who participated in this research, which they described the development of the activities and shared their perceptions about them. We also exanimated the answers of the students to the proposed activities. The analyses of the data allowed us to conclude that a more ludic approach for mathematics classes may to increase the engagement of the students in classroom, lessen the students aversion to the mathematics classes and mathematics concepts comprehensions related to the equations. On the other hand, we also noticed that the classes planning which involves games has to be done carefully and adaptations during the classes may to be necessary, especially if the students competitiveness excess become something that compromise the goals aimed for. As the result of this master degree, we produced an activity workbook, which involves equations for final years of the elementary school.