Abstract:

This paper describes a project work experience carried out in Mathematics classes, held with a teacher from a Vocational School in the North with students/trainees of vocational education. The project aimed to establish the uses given by colleagues in the class to social networks, based on the topic of statistics. The didactical intervention took place in the 3rd period of the 2014/2015 school year (after Easter until July) and involved a class of the 1st year of a Trade Technical Course (ages 15 to 17), with the class being organized into groups of three or four elements. Students used their own data because they used the phases of the research cycle in statistics. Those were the problem was about the use of social networks; data collection was planned through a questionnaire developed by the class and completed by the students of the school; the questionnaire data were inserted into a spreadsheet and analyzed, each group presenting a poster as the final product. In this investigation, the qualitative paradigm was interpretative and results analysis focused on the teacher's field notes, on the description and interpretation of the elements collected through the posters done in the classes and the final questionnaire that the students filled about the work developed. The analysis indicated that the students used their mathematical and statistical knowledge in the treatment of the data by question and in the construction of the poster. Some flaws and errors were detected in the graphs done for the posters and some of the groups could not complete the analysis of the data. As a positive result of the use of the investigative cycle in statistics, from the data with which they worked, most of the groups managed to construct the graphs with their respective measures of central tendency. In relation to group work, the difficulties experienced were punctual, with most of the groups working enthusiastically during class. In the evaluation of the students to the work accomplished, it is emphasized that the students liked to do it and recognized that they will be able to use what they learned in these classes in their daily lives. Among other final reflections, the teacher of professional education recognizes the need to implement the methodology of project work as a motivating element of statistics that has less weight in the program of the discipline of Mathematics, currently.

Keywords:

Professional education, project work, research cycle in statistics.