Abstract:

Learning through problem solving promotes critical thinking among students, essential for acquiring new skills to overcome the obstacles that will arise in the course of the life of any citizen.

To achieve this goal, the teacher should use the questioning in order to construct questions which promote the development of critical thinking of the students.

Using questions that try to value and evaluate the reading of the problem statements and their interpretation, the teacher aims to obtain clear answers in which the students present their opinions, points of view and arguments that support them.

In a previous work, we shared an experience of teaching, with 23 pupils of the 5th grade of basic education, carried out in a Mathematics class in which three end lesson tasks were implemented. The comparative study of the students' resolutions revealed that the use of the questioning between these tasks allowed the students to present a positive evolution in their capacity for critical interpretation, analysis and reflection.

In order to keep the questioning present, supporting the student in the performance of his activities, we propose a problem solving support script. With the implementation of this instrument in classroom context, it is intended to assess its impact on the evolution of student reflection and metacognition, helping him to select and carry out a set of actions, in order to arrive at the desired solution. In this way, we believe that students will develop the skills of reasoning, analysis, reflection, understanding, interpretation, decision making and their critical thinking.

In the future, it is intended to put into practice this teaching tool encouraging teachers and future teachers to implement it, since it is a simple tool that integrates easily understood questions. This resource will give students the opportunity to become more autonomous and to enhance their cognitive abilities.

In our view, it is desirable to develop more dynamic and challenging methods and instruments, such as those we propose, in contrast to traditional teaching that is rooted in schools.

Keywords:

Questioning, mathematics, end lesson tasks, critical thinking, problem solving support script.