09/06/2025

Faculty highlight 'new forms of teaching' underway at IMPA.

This Saturday (7), teachers from different schools in the Rio de Janeiro municipal network met at IMPA with a common goal: to improve mathematics teaching strategies for students in the early years. Promoted by the institute, in partnership with UniRio, the “Training Course for Elementary School Teachers I” aims to contribute to the training of teachers and improve student performance in the subject, especially in the OBMEP Children's Olympiad.

Aline Patrício, coordinator of the Ciep Samuel Wainer school in Tijuca, also highlighted the importance of the training for her teaching practice. With experience in middle school (grades 6-9), she now seeks to adapt to the demands of students in the early years. "It's an opportunity to better understand how to teach math to classes with younger students."

Nancy Rosa, a 5th-grade teacher at the Capistrano de Abreu school in Jardim Botânico, said that she saw in the course the possibility of learning "new teaching strategies to work with mathematics with students."

With activities developed in a workshop format, the course helps in developing solutions to questions from the Junior Olympiad. “The OBMEP questions, in general, seem very distant from our classroom, but in reality, they are not content-based. They stimulate creativity and logical reasoning. It's incredible to see the answers these kids give, and this happens because younger students aren't stuck on content. They have very open minds and are producing ideas that we sometimes can't imagine. That's why it's so important to help them build this type of reasoning,” said Adriana Pimenta, professor at UniRio and coordinator of the project.

The teacher training course focuses on creative methodologies that can be adapted to different school contexts, promoting dynamic, playful, and fun mathematics teaching for children. The program will have three more in-person meetings at IMPA.

“Last year, my daughter went to Disney with the Rio Olympics, and I want my students to have that opportunity too. I'm here to seek a different perspective on mathematics and learn a more playful approach,” highlighted a teacher from the Luiz Paulo Horta Municipal School in Rocinha.

The "Teacher Training Course for Elementary School Teachers I" is one of the agreed-upon conditions with CCPar for the use of the IMPA Tech space – the institute's graduate program.

The first phase of the OBMEP Children's Olympics will be on August 26th.

In its 4th edition, the OBMEP Children's Olympiad has already brought together almost eleven million students from the 2nd to the 5th grade of elementary school from public and private schools throughout Brazil. The objective of the scientific competition is to awaken interest in mathematics from the earliest school years. The exams are designed according to the age group of the participants and are the gateway to the world of scientific olympiads. This year, the first and second phase exams will take place on August 26th and November 11th, respectively.

Organized by IMPA, the OBMEP Children's Olympiad has the support of B3 Social and is promoted by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MCTI) and the Ministry of Education (MEC).