A comunicação em um cenário para investigação

Abstract

A landscape of investigation centered in real financial situations has the potential to prepare students to make decisions concerning their future. Besides, it opens up opportunities to establish new patterns of communication inside the classroom. This dissertation aims at understanding the communicative actions established when a teacher-researcher invites her students to get involved in a landscape of investigation with a focus on Financial Education. To achieve such a general aim, three specific goals were outlined. Firstly, to analyze the communicative acts that emerged during the landscape of investigation. Secondly, to understand how the teacher interventions affected the students' mathematical explorations. Thirdly, to identify the teacher's learning processes situated in the whole investigative process. Adopting a qualitative approach this research can be described as practitioner research in which one teacher investigates her classroom practice. The landscape of investigation analyzed in this dissertation was planned in conjunction with a collaborative group and implemented in one grade-10 class at a public school. The data collected were audio and video recordings of all the lessons related to the landscape of investigations, the student's written productions, and the teacher's field diary. The research employs the Inquiry Co-operation Model to analyze the communicative acts established among the students and the teacher. Such theoretical construct was complemented with the distinction among different kinds of questions employed to interpret whole-class discussions. The episodes were selected prioritizing those in which the students and the teacher negotiated mathematical notions and procedures. The analysis identified five communicative phases during the landscape of investigation and brought to the forefront the challenges confronted by the teacher. The results underline that giving voice to the students is fundamental to uncover their perspectives and to negotiate mathematical meanings. They also highlight that landscapes for investigation focused on financial education are fruitful settings to establish dialogs between mathematics and life outside the classroom.