Uso da plataforma App Inventor sob a ótica construcionista como estratégia para estimular o pensamento algébrico

Abstract

The goal of this research was to investigate relationships between the development of mobile applications through visual programming and manifestations of algebraic thinking. This is an applied and interpretative research, outlined from a qualitative perspective. In order to contemplate the proposed objectives, we used a theoretical framework on the use of digital technologies in mathematical education, Papert's Constructionism Theory (1988, 2008), computational thinking and algebraic thinking. The study was carried out with students of the first year of a technical high school at the Irati Campus of the Federal Institute of Paraná. The tool used to carry out the activities was the App Inventor platform, through which it is possible to develop applications for mobile devices using visual programming. Data collection was performed during a mobile application development workshop, consisting of two stages. During the first stage, the research participants were familiarized with the use of the App Inventor platform through a minicourse, in which the participants developed applications proposed by Wolber et al. (2011) and a mobile application to perform the addition, subtraction, multiplication and division of real numbers. During the second stage, the research participants developed applications related to problems developed based on the researched theoretical framework. Written records and application codes developed by the research participants in this stage were collected. The data were analyzed through content analysis according to Bardin (2011), in order to identify characteristics of algebraic thinking manifested during the process of carrying out the proposed activities. The results showed the predominance of the use of symbolic language to structure the algorithms, so that the proposed learning environment demanded the mobilization of different aspects related to algebraic thinking. However, it is evident that these representational forms are not consistent with those expected from the participant’s age group, indicating a level of symbolic manifestation characteristic of intermediate proto-algebraic thinking, transient between incipient algebraic thinking and consolidated algebraic thinking, which is the use of rhetorical symbolic language to designate numerical values.