Cálculo diferencial e integral no curso de Agronomia: uma perspectiva de trabalho de projetos com modelagem matemática e tecnologias digitais de informação e comunicação

Abstract

The body of this thesis of qualitative nature presents the analysis of a proposal development of an Interdisciplinary Work Project which made use of Digital Information and Communication Technologies and Mathematical Modeling to teach and learn Calculous, from the perspective of the students of Agronomy who took part, aiming to comprehend the interactions that were made possible and the reached contributions. The proposal guided itself by the teaching of content of the curricular program of the disciplines of Mathematics I and Mathematics II, which approach in essence the contents of Calculous I and Calculous II, respectively, and parallelly, by the orientation of the research. The research was conducted in a sequential manner and done by means of two distinct dynamics, but with similar intentions. The proposal consisted in the development of projects about topics/subjects of Agronomy that are of interest of the students, in groups, by means of stages which sought to stimulate the perception, the apprehension, the process of making things explicit, the meaningfulness and the expressions of students. With the research conducted by the groups, the professor directed each project to the teaching of some contents of these disciplines, in the respected semesters in which they were offered in. In Mathematics I, each group searched for data inside the field of Agronomy to develop their projects, which involved the determination of a problem-situation and the quest for its solution, utilizing mathematics. This path, done in steps, counted with the advisory of the professor, who directed each project to some content of the discipline, by means of elaboration of Advisory Sheets, which reinforced the link between research and teaching. In Mathematics II, the professor initially defined the contemplated contents in the projects of the class and solicited that the data be produced by means of experiments with crops that each group of students had interest to investigate. Again, with these data, the professor elaborated Advisory Sheets with the same objectives as the previous ones. The stages were followed by reports and meetings and at the end of each semester, the projects were socialized in seminars. In both stages, the Work Project was followed up and advised by a virtual learning environment created in the Moodle Platform, which had all sorts of material and tasks for the submission of the reports. Qualitative Epistemology Fundamentals of González Rey (2005) were used to structure the methodological path and the interpretative analysis of the information. The analysis of the constructed data in the research indicate that by proposing that the students developed the projects, the professor started to unite research, teaching and extension at the University. The main results allowed the author of this thesis to conclude that the Work Project was implemented in different forms of interaction and that it had as main agents the groups of students and their actions in collective production. The digital technologies acted on the constitution processes of the discipline with projects; in the process of data modeling, elaboration and resolution of Advisory Sheets (software); and in the communicative processes of the involved students. The modeling, in turn, enhanced knowledge and arose the curiosity for investigation in the students. Both of them, with potential to contribute to the appropriation and perfection of mathematical, scientific and technological language by the students.