Theory of ordinary differential equations

Challenges in training mathematics teachers at a public university in Alagoas.

Abstract

The training of mathematics teachers involves mastering important fields of pure and applied mathematics, alongside pedagogical training for teaching in basic education. In this sense, guiding pre-service teachers towards knowledge acquisition requires techniques, strategies, and methodologies capable of giving meaning to the content related to their training, enabling them to visualize its scientific, practical, and educational scope. In this formative process, the theory of ordinary differential equations plays an important role in teacher training, integrating the disciplines of Calculus and enabling the analysis and solution of important physical problems, reflecting its theoretical and applied character. Therefore, this article, configured as a narrative-descriptive experience report, aims to critically and reflectively describe the pedagogical experiences of the author (teacher-researcher) during the teaching of the subject Differential Equations for undergraduate students in the Mathematics Licentiate program at a public university in Alagoas. The organizational elements of the discipline, its formative objectives, teaching strategies and assessments adopted, and the main challenges related to the student's acquisition of knowledge, focused on the theoretical and applied understanding of these mathematical objects, are presented. Therefore, the relevance of this topic in the training of mathematics teachers is evident, given the depth and profusion of the theory of differential equations in solving problems in different areas of knowledge, expanding the algebraic tools of the teacher in training, while ensuring the assimilation of mathematical techniques endowed with complexity and theoretical arrangement.