Abstract:

The game is a powerful tool to work on problem solving and logical reasoning, also for the stage of Secondary Education. As Miguel de Guzman (1984) said “Mathematics never ceases to be a game and every game has some mathematics, since we must use the appropriate strategy at all times”. The following proposal has been carried out in the subject "Problem solving” of the third year of Secondary Education (15 years), with the aim of promoting logical reasoning in a playful way, and consists of starting all the classes of the first term of this subject solving a challenge of the game "The buildings". "The buildings" is a classic logic game that consists of placing all the buildings in the correct place and to follow a series of instructions. The game consists of sixteen buildings of four different heights, four are one-story buildings, four are two-story buildings, four are three-story buildings, and are four four-story buildings. There is also a 3x3 grid and a 4x4 grid to complete the different challenges. Students have to make their buildings and grids with the materials they consider most appropriate to be able to play. The structure of the game is very similar to a Sudoku puzzle, as in each of the challenges a number appears in the margin of each row and column, which represents the number of buildings that can be seen from that position, so all buildings have to place in such a way that this condition is met, but without repeating buildings of the same height in each row and column. Students begin by solving simple challenges, in a 3x3 grid, using 9 buildings of 3 heights, in order to get used to the dynamics of the game. Subsequently, the complexity of the challenges increases, first by entering the 16 buildings and then by indicating only the numbers of the essential views to be able to solve it, eliminating redundant data. In the last phase the students do their puzzles to be solved by the rest of the classmates, who have to assess which data is really necessary. In this work we present a pilot experience of the application of the game of "buildings" to promote logical reasoning in the subject of mathematics.

Keywords:

Mathematics, game “the buildings”, logical reasoning, Secondary Education.