Continuous formation of matematics teachers: personal productions

Abstract

The stimulating aspect of this study is grounded in the literature in saying that the teacher has his formation in two interrelated levels: initial and continuous. The focus is the continuing education that occurs as per the teacher’s own decision in classroom solitary situations. The assumption is that the teacher creates educational actions by the everyday existing needs in the school, especially in face of students’ difficulties and his pedagogical practice. The goal was mapped out: to analyze the production of teachers with the intention of bringing students to learning. Mathematics primary teachers of schools (5th to 8th grades) belonging to the regional education management established in Criciúma, Santa Catarina, from 1950 to 2000 were surveyed. Interviews were used as a tool for data collection. Analyses showed two categories of teaching productions: the imaginary of pedagogical practice and practical actions that illustrate classes. Another characteristic of these creations is the effort to articulate the mathematical content and its applications in everyday context, so that the conceptual relations are set in the background, making it clear that there is a disconnection between the everyday concepts and scientific concepts. Even embedded in good intentions, teachers’ creations, sometimes, do not lead students to appropriate the concepts as they desire. Teachers’ creations have a mechanistic characteristic, since their function is to provide tips for the students just to memorize and reproduce the content to be learned, without meaning and sense.