Teachers' Resources for Teaching Linear Function in High Field Schools
Documentary Approach to Didactics, Resources, Field Education, Peasant Productive Activity, Linear Function
The research is in the domains of Mathematics Education and Field Education. Its main aim is to understand how teachers select or build a resource or a set of resources to teach the concept of linear function in high field schools and the relationship with peasant productive activities. It relies on the Documental Approach to Didactics and Rural Education to do so. The Reflective Investigation Methodology is adopted as the research methodology to collect data from three field school mathematics teachers of three municipals in the Agreste Region of Pernambuco. In order to characterize the rural productive activities of the municipals, a survey was carried out in the IBGE Automatic Recovery System, and interviews were undertaken with ten rural residents of the three investigated municipals. In order to identify the teachers' resources, three methods were used: semi-structured interviews undertaken with each teacher; video recorded by the teachers about the resources available at school to teach linear function; their resource map built by themselves; observation of a lesson plan and the lesson practice. The results reveal that the main productive activities of the municipals consist of agriculture, animal husbandry, clothing manufacturing, commerce, work in quarries and the production of manual embroidery. Teachers' resources for teaching linear function are both material and non-material and broadly integrate digital resources. Some of the child-resources, derived from the mother-resources, are built by the teachers to relate the teaching of the linear function with the productive activities. However, it was only sometimes explicit in the observed class. Thus, the results point to the need for a broader discussion about the specificities of teaching mathematics in the contexts of Field Education.