CREATION OF A POTENTIALLY MEANINGFUL MATERIAL: A HISTORICAL APPROACH TO SQUARE ROOT TEACHING

ABSTRACT:

This study proposes the creation of a pedagogical material on square root teaching to be used in the early years of elementary school. It is part of a master research in Education at Universidade de Pernambuco. The History of Mathematics and the Theory of Meaningful Learning, respectively, were adopted as epistemological and pedagogical contributions. The investigative path converged towards the action research approach in which we analyzed the previous knowledge of four teachers on Fundamental Operations (OF). We observed insufficient expertise over mathematical goals and the inherent meanings of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division proposed over twenty years ago by the National Curriculum Parameters. Intending to contribute to the change in practice of these teachers regarding square root teaching, we invested in the notion of a perfect square and in the Babylonian method to calculate the square root when there is not a perfect square, aiming that this material may be potentially meaningful.

Keywords:
Early years of elementary school; history of mathematics; meaningful learning; square root