Olympic Didactic Situations and GeoGebra contributing to the initial formation of the Mathematics teacher

Abstract

This article is a research work that arose from the need to motivate and train future mathematics teachers to work with Olympics problems in their classes and instigate the investigative spirit of their students. For this, it was necessary to know how teacher training for mathematics Olympics happens and the assumptions of Theory of Didactic Situations as a theoretical foundation. This work aimed to present the application of an Olympic Didactic Situation that manages the manifestation of the epistemic concepts of teachers in initial training on the content of Numerical Sequences supported by the GeoGebra software. The methodology followed the stages of Didactic Training Engineering in line with the Theory of Didactic Situations supported by GeoGebra. The experiment participants were five students from the Mathematics degree course at the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Ceará - IFCE, Fortaleza Campus. The data collection took place using instruments such as: photographic records, audio recording, questionnaires, participants’ written productions, observations and interviews. From the analysis of the application, it was found as a result the manifestation of other ways of understanding the subject of Numerical Sequences, not expected in the analysis a priori. Another discovery was the satisfaction of using the GeoGebra application on the cell phone as a way to solve problems. In fact, it is concluded that working with Olympic problems helps in the initial training of Mathematics teachers, whether in the elaboration of conjectures, in the deepening of the contents and in the elaboration of strategies during problem solving.