La historia de las matemáticas como recurso didáctico para enriquecer su enseñanza mediante simulaciones

Abstract

The didactic function of the history of mathematics to influence the understanding of its foundations and to show the difficulty of concepts raises teaching alternatives for differential calculus, the subject with the highest failure rate at the higher level. The work of Francisco Antonio Bataller, one of the first mathematics professors in New Spain in the 18th century, is presented, with his treatises on hydrodynamics and optics for mining problems. In addition, the first mathematics textbook by Benito Bails is analyzed, which presents optimization problems that are still used in contemporary textbooks. These fundamentals allow elaborating simulated models using technology to deal with the derivative and optimization properties, thus taking these problems in a different sense for first-year undergraduate engineering students. Results of application of these activities in 90 first semester students of Administrative Informatics at the Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México during the pandemic period are presented.