Duration: 2015 – 2019
Principal Researcher
Luís Menezes
Team Members
Ana Olliveira
Ana P. Martins
António Ribeiro
Floriano Viseu
Helena Gomes
Isabel Aires de Matos
João Paulo Balula
Mónica Guitart
Pablo Flores
Véronique Delplancq
Institutional and Enterprise Partners
Universidade de Granada (Espanha)
Universidade de Mendoza (Argentina)
Universidade do Minho (Portugal)
Funding
IPV/CI&DETS
General framework: Higher education institutions responsible for training Social Educators must ensure the construction of a professional profile that is marked by its technical polyvalence and whose socio-educational intervention is directed to all people, regardless of their life situation (Ribeiro, Amante, Martins, Felizardo, Fernandes, & Xavier, 2016). Personal and relational skills (namely, empathy and autonomy) have been increasingly recognized in socio-educational work, in line with what is referred to by the International Association of Social Educators (AIEJI, 2005). In this context, it is necessary to understand the changes and processes involved in the personal and social development of Social Education students because of their experiences in higher education. This line of research, already started in the School of Education of Viseu (please see references), raises the need to reflect on the interpersonal skills of the Social Educator, as fundamental tools in socio-educational work and in the implementation of responses and strategies that promote human development, and which should be adapted to the requirements of the profession (Ribeiro, Martins, Amante, Felizardo, Fernandes, R., & Araújo, 2016; Ribeiro, Felizardo, Martins, Fernandes, Amante, & Cordeiro, 2016; Felizardo, Ribeiro, & Sargento, 2018).
This research project aims to address these issues, focusing on:
(i) the assessment of teachers' practices and knowledge regarding the use of texts presenting mathematical ideas in a humorous way.
(ii) the selection, adaptation, and creation of tasks and texts that present mathematical ideas in a humorous way, with didactic potential for early years education.
(iii) the integration and use, by early years teachers, of texts that present mathematical contexts in a humorous way for teaching Mathematics.
The project, with a strong curriculum development component, is based on knowledge about exploratory Mathematics teaching, in which students work with challenging mathematical tasks, and also on current knowledge about the didactic potential of humor in various types of texts. Regarding the first point, there is considerable research, but regarding the second, the available knowledge is scarcer.