Questões metodológicas do ensino do Cálculo Diferencial e Integral I

Abstract

The action of methodological factors in the teaching-learning process in Calculus I. This work is about a research whose main objective is to identify the variables related to the teaching methodology which interfere with the students performance of Calculus I, offered by the Mathematics Department to 17 undergraduate courses of the Federal University of Ceara. The purpose was to look for altematives that could reduce difficulties detected in the teachinglearning process of the subject. The data were collected through interviews and questionnaires applied to a sample of 15 teachers who teach the subject regularly, and 25 teachers of 26 subjects belonging to 15 undergraduate courses at UFC that have Calculus I as a required subject, 204 students who had already takem the subject and 139 students who were taking the subject in the first semester of 1992. It was ob erved that the teachers of the subject base their teaching methodology on principIes of an empirical nature, and mathematics on comum sense. They do not value social factors which interfere in the teaching-leaming process, and are sure that the students poor performance is not a consequence of their intelectual leveI. It was also observed that students lack of interest in mathematics is caused by a lack of understanding of the importance of the contents studied in relation to their real life context.