Application of an Instrument to Assess Ethnomathematical Didactic Suitability to a Teaching-Learning Proposal about Unconventional Measurement Patterns

Abstract

This study establishes relationships between the Ontosemiotic Approach to Mathematical Knowledge and Instruction (EOS) and Ethnomathematics and applies an instrument designed for teachers to assess didactic suitability of their performance from an ethnomathematical perspective. The work is part of the line of research in connection with models or compatible theories for the advancement of educational research. We analyze the structural description and objectives of EOS and Ethnomathematics, using Wittgenstein's theory as a foundation, we propose family similarities and establish relationships between them, taking postmodernist socio-epistemic theories. We apply the EOS didactic suitability indicators adapted to the Ethnomathematical perspective, expanding their scope by incorporating ethnomathematical components and indicators, testing an instrument capable of collecting the importance of context and sensitivity towards different cultures in teaching-learning proposals of mathematics and experimental science. We show the use of the instrument by its application to the assessment of a proposal on unconventional measurement patterns, implemented with Afro-descendant students of primary education in a public educational institution in the municipality of Tumaco, in Colombia. Compliance with the indicators is high, with outstanding optimal ecological suitability and epistemic suitability that can be improved. Regarding the ethnomathematical requirements that consider the contextual cultural conditions, there is a high didactic level. Recovering ancestral units of measurement from communities is an excellent way to contextualize mathematics and experimental science in any classroom, developing an intercultural education.

Keywords
Didactic suitability; Ethnomathematics; Teaching of mathematics; Science education; Measurement Patterns