Certainly one of the most powerful and important modeling languages of our time is the Calculus. But research consistently shows that students do not understand how the variables in calculus-based mathematical models relate to aspects of the systems that those models are supposed to represent. Because of this, students never access the true power of calculus: its suitability to model a wide variety of real-world systems across domains. In this paper, we describe the motivation and theoretical foundations for the DeltaTick and HotLink Replay applications, an effort to address these difficulties by a) enabling students to model a wide variety of systems in the world that change over time by defining the behaviors of that system, and b) making explicit how a system\''s behavior relates to the mathematical trends that behavior creates. These applications employ the visualization and codification of behavior rules within the NetLogo agent-based modeling environment (Wilensky, 1999), rather than mathematical symbols, as their primary building blocks. As such, they provide an alternative to traditional mathematical techniques for exploring and solving advanced modeling problems, as well as exploring the major underlying concepts of calculus.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T19:44:01Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 TeseGRSM.pdf: 4427126 bytes, checksum: 24de1763ffa95aca870f571e61dd695e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-05-22 / The comprehension of written texts continues being one of the most difficult academic practices for students of Basic Education. If comprehending a written material in linguistic terms brings out difficulties for some students, a text written in mathematical language can be even more difficult, because besides the mother language understanding, mathematical concepts are also needed. A lot of research has been done to try to find better ways to help children understand what was asked in mathematical problem-questions. However, there is a lot to be done to understand the difficulties and processes of problem resolution and about basic conceptual comprehension present in mathematical problems instructions. In this sense, the purpose of the present study was to elaborate, apply and evaluate an intervention program performed with children in the fourth year of Elementary School who showed difficulties comprehending and solving mathematical problems, and maximize their cognitive capacity. The methodology chosen was the experimental delineation of comparison between groups, an experimental and a control group. The study consisted of a pretest, an intervention program, a post-test and a delayed post-test. The pretest evaluated the children s performance in resolving arithmetical problems. Next, the teaching program was used with students who showed performance under 40% right in problems. This aimed to develop, in the students, enough knowledge to increase their resolution capacity of mathematical problems. That program sought to teach students to read mathematical problems instructions and find the most appropriate mathematical representation to solve the question. For this, it was necessary to teach the arithmetical operations concepts, since one of the children s difficulties was connected with understanding the meaning of each operation (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) and its symbolic representation. The post-test and delayed posttest results for the experimental group were superior to the pretest results for the experimental and control groups, indicating an improvement in performance for the students who took part in the program. Those data showed that the intervention utilized was efficient, increasing the cognitive capacity necessary to the task of resolving arithmetical problems, which basically consists of comprehending written instructions and representing them mathematically. / A compreensão de textos escritos mantém-se, atualmente, como uma das práticas acadêmicas mais difíceis para estudantes da Educação Básica. Se compreender um material escrito em termos linguísticos traz dificuldades para alguns alunos, um texto escrito em linguagem matemática pode ser mais difícil, porque, além do entendimento da língua materna, faz-se necessário ter conceitos matemáticos para compreendê-lo. Muitas pesquisas tentaram encontrar formas melhores para ajudar as crianças a entender o que era solicitado em situações-problema de matemática, entretanto, ainda há muito que fazer para se entender os processos e dificuldades envolvidos na resolução de problemas pelos escolares e para se levá-los a compreender os conceitos básicos contidos nos enunciados matemáticos. Nesse sentido, o presente estudo teve como objetivos elaborar, aplicar e avaliar um programa de intervenção com crianças de 4ª série do Ensino Fundamental que apresentavam dificuldades na compreensão e resolução de problemas matemáticos e maximizar as capacidades cognitivas destas crianças. A metodologia escolhida foi o delineamento experimental de comparação entre grupos, um grupo experimental e um grupo controle. O estudo consistiu de um pré-teste, um programa de intervenção, um pós-teste e um pós-teste postergado. O pré-teste avaliou o desempenho das crianças na tarefa de resolução de problemas aritméticos. Em seguida, foi aplicado o programa de ensino nos estudantes que apresentaram um desempenho inferior a 40% de acertos nos problemas propostos. O objetivo foi desenvolver nos alunos o repertório necessário para aumentar a capacidade de resolução de problemas matemáticos. Este programa procurou ensinar os estudantes a lerem os enunciados dos problemas e encontrarem a representação matemática mais apropriada para resolver a questão. Para tanto, foi necessário ensinar os conceitos das operações aritméticas, visto que uma das dificuldades das crianças estava no campo do entendimento do significado de cada operação (adição, subtração, multiplicação e divisão) e sua representação simbólica. Os resultados dos pós-teste e pós-teste postergado do grupo experimental foram superiores aos resultados dos pré-teste do grupo experimental e do grupo controle, indicando melhora no desempenho dos estudantes que participaram do programa. Demonstrou-se, com estes dados, que a intervenção utilizada foi eficiente, desenvolvendo as capacidades cognitivas necessárias à tarefa de resolução de problemas aritméticos, que consiste basicamente, em compreender o enunciado escrito e representá-lo matematicamente.

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