A significação dos números inteiros por estudantes cegos e de baixa visão a partir do material soroban dos inteiros

Abstract

This study investigated the contributions of Soroban of Integers to the meaning of integral numbers by blind students. For this purpose, bibliographic studies were carried out regarding the use of the logical-historical perspective and conceptual nexuses in the meaning of integral numbers and the needs for pedagogical and methodological adaptations for blind students. Such studies supported the construction of the manipulable didactic material and the presentation of referrals for its use in order to enable the comprehension of the integral numbers. For that matter, to analyze the practices developed through the use of manipulative didactic material, intervention research was adopted as a research approach. The interventions were carried out in two public schools, both carried out individually in rooms at the Specialized Educational Service - SES. The research was developed with a blind student and a student with low vision, students enrolled in regular schools, respectively, in the eighth and seventh year of elementary school. Finally, a qualitative, interpretative and descriptive analysis of the intervention and preestablished referrals was carried out, which showed that the material, faithful to the conceptual nexus of the Chinese in relation to the integers, allowed students, blind and with low vision, to represent and handle negative and positive quantities and perceive operations by opposing movements through vision or touch, transforming or maintaining the nature of the quantities under study. The situations created by the researcher, by the tasks and by the use of the material, made it possible to introduce the meaning of negative quantities as faults and that made students use the same mathematical evidence from the Han Dynasty in the conceptual nexuses of Chinese civilization of fluency and contradiction; zero as a center of symmetry and balance (from a geometric point of view), as a convergence and cancellation of opposites (moving, from an algebraic point of view), of similarity, simultaneity and the criteria of equivalence; of calculation with colored sticks. Therefore, it was found that the movements and records helped in the attribution and validation of the meanings of the addition, subtraction operations, in the rule of signs for the multiplication and division of whole numbers by the research participants. That way, we believe that the use of Soroban of Integers, mediated by tasks of an investigative and practical nature, can also enhance the understanding of whole numbers in other contexts, such as for students who are students in regular education.