Pedagogical Strategies to Stimulate the Active Participation of Students in Mathematics Classes in Higher Education

The most common pedagogical practice in teaching Basic Sciences in Engineering programs is the teacher-centered practice, which, through master classes, exposes the theoretical foundations and proposes exercises to strengthen students' knowledge. In these classroom environments, there are limited opportunities for student participation, and students must mostly attend to the teacher's explanations. Active learning pedagogical practices are often challenging to apply in this course. In this sense, at the University Institution of Envigado, we ask ourselves: How do we encourage evident student participation to identify progress in learning? The methodology used in this work is Critical Research (Skovsmose & Borba,2004), in which three analytical situations are proposed: the current situation, the imagined situation (hypothetical situation or solution), and the fixed situation (realistic scenario of the imagined situation). Three negotiation processes: 1. pedagogical imagination, 2. practical organization, and 3. exploratory reasoning, make the three situations proposed in the model possible. In the current situation, it is identified that the generation of environments of trust fostered by the teacher, the generation of spaces for decision-making by the students, and the understanding of the subject are elements that encourage the participation of the students. However, these pedagogical strategies are not present in a generalized or structured way in all introductory science courses. In the imagined situation, pedagogical strategies are designed to increase the student’s evident participation in classes. In this way, it is expected to generate an environment of trust that motivates the participation of students, changing their role as active agents in the learning process.