Edward Lee Thorndike e a conformação de um novo padrão pedagógico para o ensino de matemática (Estados Unidos, primeiras décadas do século XX)

Abstract

This study examines the production of Edward Lee Thorndike related to the teaching of Arithmetic s, Algebra, and Geometry, which had important implications in the restructuring of the teaching of Mathematics in the United States, beginning in the first decades of the Twentieth Century. The hypothesis adopted here was that the author came up with a new approach for the teaching of Mathematics in the United States in that period. The publications by Thorndike that were analyzed here were the ones related to the contents that deal with Mathematics, Psychology, and Education, with the objective of identifying the new pedagogical pattern that was developed for the teaching of Mathematics, as well as the singularity of his scientific production, considering the changes and debates that were occurring in the United States in regards to the teaching of Mathematics in the first decades of the Twentieth Century. As for what concerns Psychology, the concepts he adopted in the production of students manuals designed for the elementary and high school levels were analyzed. Also investigated were the different means that were used by Thorndike to work with students, teachers, psychologists, and educators that taught Mathematics. It was found that the manuals The Thorndike Arithmetics and The Thorndike Algebra are the most systematic expression of the author s efforts in order to apply the laws and principles of the Psychology of Learning and the Experimental Education that were developed by him, which placed him in the movement of the modernization of the teaching of Mathematics within and without the United States.