23/08/2021

On the blog Science and Mathematics: Doing to Learn

Crédito: PXFuel

Reproduction from the IMPA Science & Mathematics blog, from O Globo, coordinated by Claudio Landim.

José Francisco Soares – Professor Emeritus of UFMG

Cognitive science has established, beyond reasonable doubt, that learning means incorporating knowledge, procedures, relationships, and attitudes into long-term memory. In this sense, it can be said that without changes in long-term memory there is no learning. This formulation, an aspect of the so-called "Cognitive Load Theory," has just been incorporated into the conceptual model for school supervision in England.

The changes that characterize new learning are, to a large extent, induced by the tasks that teachers assign to their students in their classes, projects, and assessments. Here, the term "task" should be understood as any teaching or assessment activity applied to students that requires intellectual engagement from them. Therefore, defining tasks is the visible way of implementing a pedagogical proposal.

Of course, in addition to tasks, there are other social and personal determinants of learning such as motivation, prior knowledge, and attitudes, which, in turn, are influenced by the social characteristics of the students. However, tasks fall within the pedagogical scope and can be adapted to the needs of students in specific schools. In other words, tasks are the units of analysis for the implementation of a pedagogical proposal.

In the Brazilian case, the BNCC (National Common Core Curriculum) will only be implemented when teachers in basic education schools know how to develop and use tasks in their classes and assessments that reflect the new learning expectations encapsulated in the BNCC. For this, they need help.

In the case of mathematics, the construction of tasks should be inspired by the famous Polya cycle, which appears in pedagogical literature under various other names. It is necessary that students be challenged by tasks in each of its four stages: formulating, solving, interpreting, and communicating. The solving stage requires that the student has developed a repertoire of mathematical knowledge, for whose construction the use of appropriate tasks is also essential.

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