Contributions of the History and Epistemology of Science to the Didactics of Mathematics and Biology “AHESDMB”

Our objective is therefore to provide elements from the history of science to university students and secondary school pupils in scientific streams, thereby fostering a more authentic and realistic image of scientific activity and potentially laying the foundations for a meaningful relationship with scientific knowledge that supports learning processes. The question of the relationship between the historical construction of scientific concepts and the personal construction of knowledge constitutes an important field of investigation for didactics. Within this project, we will examine the conditions for mobilising the history of science in the context of research in the didactics of mathematics and biology. We also aim to show teachers responsible for mathematics and/or science how the history of their respective disciplines can restore meaning to certain concepts taught and how the historical approach may assist pupils and students in their scientific learning. The links between the history of science, epistemology and didactics will therefore be studied not in isolation or outside any context, but within an integrative perspective capable of developing both teaching practices and learners’ relationships with scholarly knowledge and taught knowledge.

Objectives

To highlight the impact of the history of science on the learning of mathematics and biology.

To provide teachers with didactic support enabling them to incorporate the historical dimensions of fundamental concepts into their teaching.

Actions undertaken / planned

Definition of fundamental concepts in mathematics and biology.

Determination of their levels of formulation from lower secondary school to the first year of university in mathematics and life and natural sciences streams.

Identification of elements of the history of science in the curricula and textbooks of mathematics and life and natural sciences.

Epistemological analysis of the content of the principal concepts included in lower and upper secondary school programmes in mathematics and biology.

Expected results / prospects

Drafting of several didactic units in mathematics and in life and natural sciences.

Design and development of a booklet on the history of mathematics and another booklet on the history of biology