TRINCAS PITAGÓRICAS E NÚMEROS FIGURADOS: UM ENFOQUE HISTÓRICO PARA O ENSINO DO TEOREMA DE PITÁGORAS

Abstract

Aiming to articulate History of Mathematics, Problem Solving, manipulative materials and digital resources, a didactic project revolving around the arithmetical origin of the Pythagorean Theorem was applied in four Year 9 classes of a private school in São Paulo. The whole itinerary was completed in a week, during which each class had four lessons. Each group was composed of 20 students by the age of 14. By means of an expository class in dialogue fashion, students got in touch with the historical context in which the Pythagoreans existed. In the following activity, an investigation process analogous to the original Pythagorean thought was applied by letting the students solve figurate number problems through the use of colored chips. Conclusions were discussed with the whole class and newly learned content was formalized and historically contextualized. In order to make it easier to grasp historical situations and new figurate contents, animations previously developed by the teachers were used. The articulation of different resources seemingly favored the motivational aspect of learning as well as the formation of concepts and procedures regarding the Pythagorean Theorem. Positive results were evidenced both by group interactions as well as by written solutions.