Mathematical Tasks for the Development of Space Perception in Early Childhood Education: potentials and limits

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the potentialities and limits of mathematical tasks, elaborated based on the didactic suitability criteria, to favor the development of space perception in children of Early Childhood Education. The criteria of didactic suitability, theoretical tools of the ontosemiotic approach, serve for analysis and evaluation of teaching and learning processes. This qualitative study was developed with the children of Group 3 in the Federal University of Bahia day-care center, through the implementation of task sequences. The results showed that, overall, the task's sequences had a level of didactic suitability from medium-high to high and, although they did not reach a high level of suitability, they played a coherent interrelationship, contributing with a favorable course of approach for the children, with important notions for the development of space perception, showing, as a whole, the potential of the designed tasks and, therefore, the suitable character of the proposal. Specifically, the mediational criterion, which concerns, for example, material resources, ended up functioning as a learning boundary, since it was a distractor, diverting children's attention to other learning objectives.

Keywords:
Mathematical Tasks; Perception of Space; Childhood Education; Didatic Suitability Criteria