THE LEARNING OF CONIC SECTIONS AND THE DEDUCTION OF THEIR EQUATIONS THROUGH PROBLEM SOLVING IN THE CONTEXT OF HIGH SCHOOL

Abstract

Problem-solving activities have been highlighted prominence in official documents and research in Mathematics Education for fostering students’ learning. This article aims to analyse how the Teaching-Learning-Assessment Methodology of Mathematics through Problem Solving contributed to the construction of the concepts of circumference and parabola, as well as to the deduction of their equations. This is an empirical study with a qualitative approach, carried out with two classes from the third year of the Technical Course in Mechanics integrated with Upper Secondary Education at a public school in the metropolitan region of São Paulo. The results indicate that the adopted methodology favoured the understanding of the concepts and the development of students’ mathematical thinking. The use of GeoGebra enhanced learning by enabling critical reflections during problem solving. Furthermore, the assessment process was built throughout the problem-solving activities, guiding students and promoting mathematical learning.