Matemática recreativa em aulas dos anos finais do ensino fundamental

Abstract

This research studies aspects related to motivation in the school context. Considering it relevant for the good development of students, it presents Recreational Mathematics (RM) as an object of research in Mathematics classes. The guiding question of the research is: how can the use of an activity book, focused on RM, worked in a systematic and regular way in an Elementary School class in the final years, influence the students' attitude towards mathematics classes? As a general objective of the research, we aimed to evaluate the perception of Elementary School students in their final years about mathematics classes when RM is regularly used. To achieve the general objective, we established the following specific objectives: to investigate the behavior of students during math classes before and after the introduction of RM through the activity notebook (Educational Product); examine questionnaires related to students' perception of the mathematics class before the insertion of RM; study the potential of RM for the mathematics classroom; develop an RM (Educational Product) activity book to be applied in the 7th grade. For this qualitative methodological study, data were collected from field notes, audio recordings, questionnaires and student homework sheets. Therefore, we carried out observations in the classroom to study the behavior of students during mathematics classes before, during and after the application of the prepared activity book, as well as applying perception questionnaires to understand the students' view of mathematics classes and, we also inserted, in the school routine, the use of an activity notebook during a period of ten weeks of the school year of 2022. To analyze the data collected, we carefully read the transcriptions and notes of the fieldwork notebook, identifying the following categories: positive features of math classes, negative features of math classes, positive features of RM insertion, negative characteristics of RM insertion. As a result, we point out that the insertion of RM in the classroom provided changes in the attitudes and perceptions of some students and a significant increase in the number of those who actively participated in classes and involved themselves in the proposed tasks was noticed. We conclude that the insertion of systematic RM in the classroom has the potential to awaken students' interest/motivation in mathematics and can contribute to help teaching practice