School building perimeter wall construction project: An interinstitutional didactic device for Telesecundaria

Abstract

Based on the perspective of Questioning the world (Chevallard, 2013), our research focused on designing a Study and Research Path (SRP). We present the work carried out in a ‘telesecundaria’ school from a rural community in Mexico and used the notion of interinstitutional relationship to study a relevant problem for the community and the school social context: the construction of the school building perimeter wall. This problem and its analysis were central in the methodological design. Through the proposed SRP, students and teacher managed to position themselves and face the real problem, from the school. In addition, they covered a significant amount of the syllabus contents and used a direct proportionality model to address some of the derived tasks such as evaluating budgets, making interviews, investigating salaries, quantities, qualities and resistance of the materials. We conclude about the need to generate interinstitutional designs framed, for instance, in the theoretical-methodological proposal here presented.