Collaborative training for teaching probability and statistics: empirical approaches and simulation with elementary school students

This paper presents a discussion of a case study conducted with the voluntary participation of sixteen mathematics teachers in the final years of elementary school in the city of São José dos Campos in São Paulo, Brazil. Research has shown that mathematics teachers feel insecure and sometimes use a linear and deterministic approach to teaching statistics. This form of teaching arises often in the course of initial training when teachers study statistics through formal, procedural and decontextualized training. Based on this problem, a collaborative action research project has been developed. In this paper, we analyze one of the activities planned in pairs and implemented by one of the teachers. Participants developed empirical activities on probabilistic and statistical themes and planned lessons with a focus on problem solving by simulation. It was evident that the teacher was a producer of knowledge that mobilizes that knowledge for the sake of generating teaching situations that promote student learning. During the teaching process, students misconceived luck, chance and causality, requiring the teacher to manage the process that allowed them to re-elaborate these ideas and the appropriation of new elements for understanding statistics