Pensamento computacional na educação básica: uma abordagem para estimular a capacidade de resolução de problemas na matemática.

Abstract

The development of the capacity to solve problems should be stimulated from the initial grades. Facing this necessity, the teaching of Computing began to be considered with the objective of stimulating and improving essential competences to solve problems. Aiming that students can develop a way of interacting with the Computer Science through an interdisciplinary thinking, the Computational Thinking. The Computational Thinking is based on the competences acquired through the Computer Science, not only as a tool, but as a way of thinking in an organized way and being able to explore the potentiality from information and communication technologies. The main approaches to stimulate Computational Thinking are: through specific Computer Science disciplines(programming, algorithms, etc.) and through the joint application of Computational Thinking in parallel with the teaching of subjects in the basic education(mathematics, science and reading) without the need of specific disciplines from the Computer Science. Considering the second approach, it is a problem to perform practical applications with the lack of subsidy in the literature (few practical studies), preventing its implementation. In this sense, an approach was designed to stimulate the competences of Computational Thinking together with the discipline of mathematics in the basic education. Such approach had the objective to stimulate students’ capacity to solve problems through the discipline of mathematics, stimulating the essential competences through practical activities using exercises in greater conformity with the Computational Thinking. The proposed approach evidenced factors that may have contributed to improve the capacity to solve problems in the students involved. This was identified through the application of a quasi-experiment where it was possible to identify the impact of the practical activities proposed, regarding the stimulation of the students’ capacity to solve problems.