Abstract:

This work intents to understand the mathematical thinking and learning, through representations developed by eight and nine years old students, in an outdoor sociocultural environment adopting STEAM education. According to the aim of this work, a qualitative, descriptive and interpretative metodology was carried out involving a session belonging to the educational research QR Codes and maths trail: virtual visit to “Portugal dos Pequenitos” and “Exploratório”, in which the students had participated. Data was gathered from students’ productions, participant observation, field notes and photographic records. Grounded Theory (GT) and Activity Theory (AT) were used to analyse the data.

The main findings point out: use of different types of representations by students, transforming one mode of representations to another; emergence of obstacles when the students tried to transform the active representations into iconic or symbolic representations; mobilization of number sense, estimation, measurement (length and area), geometric shapes, patterns, seeding, problem solving, visual-spatial thinking, quantitative thinking, creativity, hands-on and minds-on activities; students skills in using QR Codes and mobile devices; presence of cooperation between students, without guiding or formal instructions, which can be named a spontaneous cooperation.

Keywords:

STEAM, representations, visual-spatial thinking, problem solving, hands-on and minds-on activities, cooperation, eight and nine years old students.