Use of teaching materials with chess resources for teaching mathematics. Study of its effects on a sample of 2nd grade students

This thesis raises the proposal of introducing didactic, recreational and manipulative material using chess resources in order to teach maths and its application during a school year to three classrooms of 2nd Cycle in Primary Education. The thesis is divided into three different parts. In the first part, there is a theoretical foundation of its contents and the characteristics of the first cycle in Primary Education. Different chess approaches are also analyzed, as well as its contributions to education and the didactic and educational material. Furthermore different aspects of the maths curriculum are detached: main aims, criteria for assessment and methodology in the maths teaching. To end this first part, the didactic material and its particularities are studied as far as its application to the maths teaching is concerned. The second part refers to the investigation approach and the research development. After planning the main and concrete aims and the hypothesis, the context of the centres is analyzed: public, municipal and private-concerted. This part also explains the design and planning of the investigation and the fieldwork process. Quantitative and qualitative results of the investigation are presented in order to verify the acceptance of the expounded hypothesis and the fulfilment of the proposed aims. In the third part the general and specific conclusions of the investigation are explained and it finishes with some pedagogic suggestions concerning to the topic. The thesis offers a wide range of bibliographic, web graphic and legislative references to facilitate the study and furthering of the discussed topics. The attachments present the applied and validated material, some images of the fieldwork, tables with the gathering information as well as the data guide of the fieldwork observation. It’s important to talk about the need of incorporating recreational-manipulative material using chess resources to improve the maths teaching methodology, increasing that way the pupil’s motivation and interest and having repercussions on the increasing of their maths output. Some material validated by expert judges is proposed: dices, chessboard, decks, domino, hexagon and bull’s eye board.