THE TEACHING OF BRAHMAGUPTA'S POLYGONS: A CONTRIBUTION OF DIDACTIC ENGINEERING

Abstract

The subject of History of Mathematics aims to discuss the development of Mathematics from studies of ancient civilizations. One such civilization is the Hindu. Despite their notoriety, there are few academic works that propose teaching methodologies focused on the geometry developed by them. Most are poring over the discoveries of Europeans not giving the Hindu people their due credit. In this sense, this manuscript aims to present a Didactic Situation about the Polygons of Brahmagupta, a famous Hindu mathematician, based on the assumptions of the Didactic Situation Theory, with the support of Geogebra software as an auxiliary resource for the teacher and students. As a research methodology, we adopted Didactic Engineering, in its two beginnings. We conclude, in the preliminary analysis, that there are no records of works that make use of the Theory of Didactic Situations as a methodology for teaching this content. Part of the works that discuss the mathematician only elucidate about historiography. We believe that this teaching methodology adds positively to the teaching of Mathematics, in particular, to geometry problems linked to the discoveries presented by Brahmagupta, thus being able to contribute to the teaching of the subject discussed.