A group of students from the 8th and 9th years of Elementary School II from the public school system in the State of São Paulo meet at Unicamp, on Saturday mornings, to participate in training for the Brazilian Public School Mathematics Olympiad (Obmep). There are, on average, 80 students, who attend classes offered free of charge as part of the Intensive Training Olympic Centers Program (Poti), carried out by the National Institute of Pure and Applied Mathematics (Impa) with the aim of stimulating the study of Mathematics and revealing new talents in the area.
Unicamp is one of the Training Centers spread throughout Brazil. The tests for the first phase of the 14th edition took place in June and the second phase on September 15th. The training is expected to take place until October, for students who are also interested in participating in the 40th Brazilian Mathematics Olympiad (OBM), scheduled for the 13th and 14th of November.
The professor at the Institute of Statistical Mathematics and Scientific Computing (Imecc) at Unicamp and current coordinator of Poti at the University, Laura Rifo, says that of the 120 students enrolled, 110 were approved, despite 100 places initially being open. Some even switched to Poti Virtual, where Impa provides video classes and exercises. The Program offers funding to teachers. In addition to the six postgraduate students who work as teachers in the initiative, eight undergraduate students from Imecc, scholarship holders from Unicamp's Student Support Service (SAE) and volunteers, work as monitors, helping students to solve problems.
As the coordinator explains, during classes, the teacher gives a brief explanation of the subject and gives an example with an exercise. Then, the class is divided into smaller groups, around 10 students, who spread out across the Basic Cycle square to solve the exercises together and with the help of a responsible monitor. Finally, they return to the classroom where the teacher solves the exercises that the class had the most difficulty with. Every two Saturdays, alternately, a simulation is held.
Laura Rifo shows enthusiasm when talking about the initiative. “I really believe that Obmep is a motivator of social mobilization, truly providing inclusion, as medal-winning students can compete for undergraduate scholarships at public universities", he says. For the professor, one of the reasons that motivates students would be participation of Imecc students as teachers and class monitors.
A student in the 4th year of the Degree in Mathematics at Imecc and monitor, Luana Aguiar, analyzes that being at Unicamp can be another motivation for students. “They are not just studying mathematics on Saturdays, they are studying mathematics on Saturdays at Unicamp”, highlighted the monitor. She celebrates participating in an initiative while studying for a degree, as it is a way of having contact with students, learning to articulate, express oneself, deal with the class, become didactic and motivate students.
According to 4th year Imecc Mathematics degree student and Poti monitor Andrey Alleoni, the guidance that the monitors received from Professor Laura is to stay close to the students. “We are trying to establish groups of students. This creates a bond and coexistence ends up creating a more relaxed atmosphere, with inside jokes”, said Alleoni, who also has a public education background and won an honorable mention in an edition of the Mathematics Olympiad.
Teaching environment for future teachers
“Poti serves as a teaching laboratory for our students”, analyzes Laura Rifo. She explains that the Program provides Mathematics degree students with the possibility of working in practice as teachers, in addition to functioning as a research environment for master's degrees and scientific initiation. “I believe that this is the counterpart [of the Program] for the University”, she states. Training for the Mathematics Olympiad is based on problem solving, encouraging students to use logical or deductive reasoning, motivating them to think of different forms of solutions, even without having specific content.
Intensive Training Olympic Centers Program (POTI) aims to encourage the study of Mathematics and reveal talents in the area.
Master's student Rodrigo Takashi Kubota is one of Poti's teachers, and says that he conducts classes in order to explore different perspectives on the techniques and rules of mathematics, seeking to generate curiosity in students. Kubota is a student in the Master's degree Professional in Mathematics in the National Network (PROFMAT) at Unicamp, and started teaching in 2011, in the 2nd year of the course after the school director, upon seeing his performance in the subject and hearing praise from his colleagues about his explanations, invited him to answer questions about pre-entrance exams. The challenges of mathematics are the object of study by Kubota, who, in addition to teaching at Poti, uses classes to develop his master's research, in which he analyzes students' enthusiasm for algebra challenges depending on the degree of abstraction, that is, when the problem is presented through letters and not numbers.
Other studies are being developed based on the environment promoted by Poti. Master's student Jheovany Martins, 22, who coordinates the training together with professor Laura, is analyzing students' difficulties in solving exercises and the role of the monitor in the learning process. “The idea of the research is to measure the impacts of these [POTI] activities on students’ mathematical development, checking whether students incorporate the knowledge acquired after solving exercises through some mediation,” he explained. Martins, who was an Obmep medalist and even participated in the then Scientific Initiation Program (PIC), carries out his research within the scope of the Multiunit Postgraduate Program in Science and Mathematics Teaching (Pecim).
