The soap powder box: analysis of the potential of a learning situation

Abstract

The concern that generated this study is related to the way of recognizing the potential of a situation developed within the assumptions of the Teaching Guiding Activity to trigger the students' activity. Our goal is to present and analyze the potential of a situation that triggers learning using packaging to teach the concepts of area and volume. The proposal is theoretically supported by Cultural-Historical Theory, Activity Theory, and Guided Teaching Activity. As a procedure to analyze the situation presented, we used the analysis framework developed by Panossian et al. (2020) that articulates the conceptual, cognitive, and instructional aspects of Didactic Analysis from the principles of dialectical pairs present in the theoretical and methodological basis of the Teaching Guiding Activity. In analyzing the situation, the elements of the Guiding Teaching Activity are made explicit: need, motive, actions, and operations, as well as the conceptual aspects in the historical-logical movement of the concept; cognitive aspects linked to the mobilization of theoretical thinking in overcoming the empirical forms of generalization of reality, and finally instructional aspects, in which the actions of the teaching activity and the expectations in relation to the learning actions are made explicit. The analysis of the proposed organization of teaching through the situation of the soap powder box shows its potential to trigger student learning and contribute to the appropriation of theoretical knowledge of area and volume.