Modelagem matemática no contexto do ensino medio: possibilidade de relação da matemática com o cotidiano.

Abstract

The present work is the result of an investigation accomplished during the application of the Mathematics Modelling into the context of high school, considering a perspective of a searching for a methodological alternative of the Mathematics studies. The option for this learning strategy arose after studies, discussions and reflections about the Mathematics in itself and Mathematics Education, with the purpose to search improvements to the Mathematics teaching and learning process. The Mathematics Modelling approach seeks to make the learning process more significant for the student, once it has as its objective starting with subjects that the students’ group would be interested for. The question to be answered by the investigation is: ‘What’s the best way to link up the everyday knowledge, brought by the students, with the Mathematics ones, which are originally set by the school? Such important question establishes an objective: to analyze the Mathematics Modelling application in the classroom, taking into account the context, the ways to get results and the comprehension of the Mathematics subjects. The investigation was developed in two moments: three bi-monthly terms of 2004 and the first bi-monthly term of 2005. The two streams involved, a group of external students and another group of inmates, were attending the first grade in the Augusto Ribas Agricultural School, Ponta Grossa, Paraná, and were studying the same theme: the Soya bean cultivation. In the presence of the aim that has been intended, the investigation followed the qualitative perspective with the emphasis in the ethnography of the school work. The data collection started from interviews, documents, observances and from some participants’ spontaneous demonstrations. The results point out the opening created by this methodological alternative, the new hole of teachers and students involved in the process. One refection is also done about the difficulties found for putting into effect the Mathematics Modelling purposes in the school context, in order to break up with the current way of Mathematics teaching, in what most actions are focused in give priority to the final product in detriment of the process. Key-words: Mathematics Modeling; Teaching and Learning Process, Mathematics Education, Methological.