Conhecimentos prévios : condição para uma aprendizagem significativa dos números decimais

Abstract

This research sought to answer the following question: What is the importance of prior knowledge for students in the sixth year of elementary school to enhance meaningful learning about decimal numbers? Faced with this question, the general objective of the research was to identify the impacts of prior organizers for teaching decimal numbers to students in the 6th year of elementary school at a school in the municipal education network of Vacaria/RS, covering the conceptual construction of decimal numbers, as well as the development of the addition and subtraction algorithm, having as a fundamental principle the prior knowledge of them. When developing this investigation, it is understood that the teaching methods must enhance the construction of meanings for the one who learns and, therefore, the fundamentals to promote the interaction of previous knowledge with new concepts are found in David Ausubel's Theory of Meaningful Learning, thus enabling new connections in the student's cognitive structure. As a resource that facilitates meaningful learning, active learning based on problem solving was listed. The research pointed out that students who had in their cognitive structure understanding in relation to natural numbers satisfactorily demonstrated the conceptual construction of decimal numbers, as well as operations and problem solving. In view of this, it is inferred that for students to understand and learn to operate with decimal numbers, one of the essential prior knowledge is the set of natural numbers and the operations between their elements. [resumo fornecido pelo autor]