Um mapa conceitual para interações fundamentais

At first, the paper stresses a modern trend concerning the curriculum of high school and introductory college physics courses. According to this trend, the curriculum must be modernized by the introduction of contemporary physics topics and by teaching traditional classical physics topics from amodern point of view. Following this trend, a concept map for fundamental interactions of nature is presented focusing the topic "forces" from a unifying standpoint showing that the number of fundamental forces of nature is actually quite small. Finally, the question of contextual dependence of the meanings assigned to physical concepts is also discussed

Diez años de la revista "Enseñanza de las ciencias" : de una ilusión a una realidad"

This paper is essentially the sequence of overhead transparencies used in tlie opening speech of the IV International Congress on Research in the Didactics of Science and Mathematics, held iri Barcelona, September 13-16, sponsored by the "Enseñanza de las Ciencias" journal. The theme of the speech was a critica1 analysis of the first ten years, 1983-1992, of this journal. Initially, the analysis focuses on general aspects of the journal such as its policies, its political positions, the language issue, the emphasis on research on teaching, the kiilds of papers published, and the subjects of these papers. Then, the focus moves to a critica1 view of the research papers concerning their theoretical and methodological bases

La V epistemológica aplicada a algunos enfoques en resolución de problemas

This paper includes a technique to apply a simplified Gowin’s Vee as a reference tool to analyse four different trends which are useful for research in Physics problem solving. They are: a) the strategy alternative; b) the problem solving in accordance with scientific methodology; c) the problem solving and its social environment and d) the problem solving in Science and Technology with a practical proposal. Its analysis shows the way it can be used for the classroom

Física contemporánea en la escuela secundaria : una experiencia en el aula involucrando formación de profesores

In this paper we describe our experience in teaching two contemporary physics topics --elementary particles and superconductivity-- at high school level. The experience was developed in two years, including topic selection, preparation of instructional materials, teacher training, and classroom implementation

La enseñanza de Física en una escuela militar ¿Una herencia behaviorista?

This case study consists of a classroom ethnography in which the daily basis of physics as a discipline in a classroom of students of the second year of high school, in a Brazilian military school, is described. It comprises a set of more comprehensive ethnographic studies in different types of schools as well as in the context of higher education teaching. It aims at investigating possible contributions of aspects related to the nature of science as a potentially useful strategy for the improvement of physics teaching. The observed physics teacher did not have in his schooling any formal study of epistemological disciplines, so that it was also the goal of this research the identification of his epistemological conceptions and of any feasible relationships between these conceptions and his teaching praxis. Research findings suggested a classroom reality and a school context that seemed to favor cross-examining the existence behaviorist legacy, although under a different disguise, as well as the need to reflect upon the extent to which this legacy can be considered harmful

Modelos mentales y aprendizaje de física en electricidad y magnetismo

A study conducted under the framework of Johnson-Laird's mental model theory is described. The objective of such a study was an attempt to categorize introductory college physics students according to the type of mental representations --propositions, images, and models-- they used when solving problems and conceptual questions in electricity and magnetism. The basic features of each category are presented and several examples are given. At the end implications for research and instruction are discussed

Mental models vs cell schemes

Student's mental representations of cell are examined from the perspectives of Johnson-Laird's mental models theory five years after instruction. The observed identity and stability of such representations are then interpreted under the framework of Vergnaud's conceptual fields theory. From the findings of these analyses some connections between these theories which might help in understanding the cognitive processes in learning scientific concepts, are established

Habilidad en preguntas conceptuales y en resolución de problemas de Física

This study is described correlating the perfomance of engineering students in basically conceptual physics quizzes with their performance in physics exams constituted essentially by problem solving items. Research findings clearly suggest that mastery of concepts in a necessary but not sufficient condition for problem solving

Validación de un test para verificar si el alumno posee concepciones científicas sobre calor, temperatura y energía interna

This study is a continuation of the task of validating a paper and pencil test to check whether the student has scientific conceptions about heat, temperature and internal energy in which we are working since 1989. The third version of this instrument is presented here. Previous versions (Silveira, Moreira and Axt, 1990,1991) were modified after an analysis of internal consistency carried out with additional data provided by 168 students of introductory physics at UFRGS. The present version is constituted by 23 items, which might be divided into three groups, each one corresponding to one of the three concepts: heat, temperature and internal energy. This division is based on a logical content analysis as well as on an empirical analysis of students' responses