COGNITION AND LOGIC: ADAPTATION AND APPLICATION OF INCLUSIVE TEACHING MATERIALS FOR HANDS-ON WORKSHOPS

Abstract

The use of inclusive teaching materials that motivate and encourage the development of executive functions has been neglected by the mathematic teaching, in which intelligence is valued, but no efforts are made to stimulate it. There are numerous reasons for that, among which are teachers’ and students’ unawareness that mathematics involves higher cognitive functions. Both the “number sense”, considered the innate start of logical-mathematical intelligence, and the “numeric core”, a cerebral cortical area located in the left parietal lobe which is responsible for processing sensory motor information, depend on an adequate stimulation to establish the bases of logical-mathematical potential development. The hands-on workshop named “Cognition and Logic” applied inclusive teaching materials adapted for visually impaired people in order to motivate and to promote sensory-motor stimulation and logical thinking through different games (tangram, Rubik′s cube, soma cube, and tower of Hanoi) at different levels of difficulty with the potential use for detection of highly talented students. This workshop was applied since March 2014 until May 2015, as part of the Itinerant Museum of Neuroscience, project organized by Science and Cognition – Science Outreach and Neuroscience Education Center (CeC-NuDCEN/Federal University of Rio de Janeiro) and Science and Cognition Organization (OCC). This project visits formal and non-formal educational spaces looking for neuroscience outreach. Our data shows that neuroscience hand-on workshops are important to promote integration between university researchers knowledge and scholars (educators and students), contributing to the improvement of education and the growth of the individual and the society.