Educate on the “mathematization and modeling” in the secondary school

Abstract

This paper illustrates the didactic itinerary performed in a 7th-grade class, in order to investigate the development of the students' beliefs about the elements and effective processes to be implemented in order to achieve an optimal resolution of a mathematical problem. The itinerary consists of multiple cooperative activities able to deeply analyze the processes involved in the cycle of mathematization. The students approached these proposals with motivation and interest, with particular appreciation to the multidisciplinary aspect due to the understanding and reading of a text. Results show how the students, during the resolution of a mathematical problem, have learned to shift their focus from the product to the processes: the attention that was previously directed only to the mathematical result is now also distributed on important processes such as the reading, the application of algorithms, the choice of operations, the implementation of metacognitive strategies and the reflection and interpretation of the obtained mathematical result.