Abstract:
In a time where the appeal to the development of creativity and to the solving of less customary problems in students is getting more and more often, this study comes as an attempt to understand and explicit how to establish a relation (that was always there) between Creativity, more specifically Creative Problem Solving, and Mathematics. Therefore, the main goal is to study the evolution of the Mathematics teaching in the Twentieth Century, identifying along this period the presence of creativity, in the form of creative processes, in the Mathematics curricula. That identification will be made through the analysis of school handbooks used in the current 7th grade. To do so, this dissertation is divided in three different chapters.
The first chapter refers the renovations made in the twentieth century in the school system, especially the impact they had on Mathematics.
In the second chapter we study the concept of Creative Problem Solving, both in the domain of Psychology and of Mathematics, and we also define, exemplify and explain the creative processes that can be applied in the information processing in the context of Problem Solving. To finish this chapter we make a brief reference to the role of the teacher as a creative teacher and also report some experiences that promote the Creative Problem Solving in the Mathematics teaching.
In chapter three, where there is the empiric component of this dissertation, we analyse several school handbooks, which correspond to the current 7th grade, of different time period. In that analysis we add up the presence of each creative process in Mathematical contents, both on a practice and theory level and at different kind of problems, therefore allowing a broad perspective on the increase or decrease of the use of creative processes in general, and of each one in particular, in Mathematics, along the twentieth century.
This work ends by reaching conclusions concerning the achieved results and emphasising the importance that the referred conclusions will have to future studies and especially to a more creative scholarly practice.
A evolução do Ensino da Matemática em Portugal no Séc. XX: Uma presença de Processos Criativos (pdf) »» |