Partial meanings of the Pythagorean theorem used by teachers in the creation of tasks within the framework of a continuing education program

Abstract

[Objective] This article presents the results of research on the teaching and learning of the criterion “implement a representative sample of the complexity of the mathematical object to be taught,” which was carried out with high school mathematics teachers from Ecuador in a master’s degree program in continuing education. [Methodology] After a discussion of the instructional process which was used when teaching this criterion, a qualitative analysis of the responses to one of the tasks proposed for the students in this master’s degree program is presented: creating tasks for whose resolution the students had to apply a certain partial meaning of the Pythagorean theorem (geometric or arithmetic-algebraic), as a demonstration of the learning that they had achieved. [Results] The results show that some students in the master’s degree program proposed tasks to work on the Pythagorean theorem, but did not specify or justify whether the tasks they designed were related to arithmetic-algebraic meaning, to geometric meaning or to both; other students did not propose any task to work on arithmetic-algebraic meaning; and one participant in the master’s program did not propose any task to work on geometric meaning. It was also observed that some students created tasks that did not correspond to either of these meanings. [Conclusions] It was concluded that teachers have difficulties in creating a task and indicating the type of meaning of the Pythagorean theorem that should be used to solve it, and that geometric meaning was most related to the tasks that they proposed.