CONCEPTIONS OF CREATIVITY MATHEMATICS: THREE CASE STUDIES WITH STUDENTS IN 3RD CYCLE OF BASIC EDUCATION

Mathematics creativity is difficult to define, given the diversity of meanings that appear to today. But it is crucial, whether in society or in mathematics education. Mathematical creativity today is not valued as an integral part of the classroom context and in practices teachers of teaching, possibly due to the constant changes in the Portuguese curricular. In this sense, it is necessary to promote the development of creativity as an integral part of the pedagogical practice of the teacher, and the role is fundamentally to allow students opportunities to be the use of didactic resources, such as the mathematical tasks and using technology. For this purpose, this paper investigates of possible conceptions of students of the 3rd cycle of basic education about the mathematical creativity, an investigation was in 2013/2014 and 2014/2015, with the use three years of distinct (7th, 8th and 9th years) in total of five classroom, from two public schools Portuguese of northern country. In this investigation was used a methodology qualitative and interpretative nature, with the case study design. The data collection instrument was the questionnaire survey, filled by the participants in math class, because the investigator was the teacher of the discipline. The processing of data was based in the contend analysis of written documents relating to responses of the participants and analysis categories formulation. The results achieved indicated, that conceptions of mathematics creativity, for these participants was divergent. In cases I and II, was associated to "Class Environment" and in case study III the mathematical creativity was view an "Innovation".