Abstract:

Spanish students have improved their results for mathematics in the last decade, but they remain below the OECD average (PISA, 2013). Reviewing the literature, we found that there is a lack of educational resources that prevent students attain the skills and competencies required (Villarreal, 2005). We need answers that motivate and optimize learning.

In a classroom, we can find different students. Each one has a perception, a way of understanding, an ability to acquire knowledge… But all of them need the knowledge proposed by the teacher (Fernández Bravo, 2010), even if they aren’t aware of it.

When we talk about teaching mathematics, we often find a difficulty. Some of the students have no problem following the explanation, but there are students which need more reps, and a few of them require a greater dedication.

In this situation, teachers are in a dilemma. If they stop to help these slower learning students, the rest of them get bored or dispersed. But on the other hand, these students are the ones who need more the teacher guidance.

To solve this problem, we offer a proposal for educational innovation based on group games (Kamii and DeVries, 2010), in which the mathematical knowledge that the student has to understand underlies. The main feature of these games is that the mathematical contents are not explicit in the game. Through this methodology, the slower learning students can acquire mathematical concepts without realizing.

This paper aims to identify, characterize and analyze some variables involved in teaching and learning mathematics in a secondary education class where games are used as a learning resource.

In our proposal "there is no prerequisite to play". "You can play and even win only with your logic". All students can learn and have fun with the game, and it doesn’t matter if they are good at mathematics or not. Some of them may improve its strategy and the others can acquire it by imitation. The slower learning students waste the necessary time to understand the concept without realizing. The teacher's role is crucial in the choice/invention of the game

Keywords:

Group games, attention to diversity, mathematics learning, Secondary Education, peer learning.