Due to the difficulties in Physics teaching and learning, we have done a pilot experience in a secondary school depending on the Universidad de Buenos Aires. The students, 14 years old average had to create a fictional product employing physics contents using the specific vocabulary of the Physics. Subjects chosen by the students were: magnets, refraction, reflection, sound risks, flotation and others. The cultural tools they created were mystery stories, poems, songs and drawings. In this paper we focus on the description and the analysis of the didactic experience taking into account the students strategies of learning, especially the use of cognitive tools like stories, that facilitated an emotional relationship to the Physics contents. We can recognise some categories that we consider important for a meaningful learning, e.g. scaffolding, activation of prior knowledge, metacognition, expanded learning community, and an emotional context. We believe that at the beginning of the formal science studies the “use” of the romantic understanding could facilitate the transition to the philosophic understanding.
Introduction
Learning Physics is not easy. It is necessary to acquire new information and reorganise or modify the prior knowledge. Then, the activity of the learner plays an important role. He or she should be committed to their learning process. He has to be concentrated. However the experience in schools shows that there are a lot of difficulties in physics teaching and learning in secondary school such as the age of the students, teenagers, no motivation, no interest in science and a poor concentration. Students consume the contents and procedures but they do not appropriate them, they do not internalise. (De Certau in Wertsch, 1998), they learn the “student role” as Perrenoud (1990) says, manipulating, and speculating.
In addition, some students have a negative attitude to the Science. And finally they do not change the alternative conceptions (Driver, 1989)
On the other hand, we believe, according to Resnick (1996) that studies designed, implemented, and analysed in practice could contribute to find a bridge between the theoretical and practical educational understanding.
We have designed an instructional strategy in order to analyse and study how students approach to the physics, how they manage their learning process and which strategies they choose in a specific class context. We will intend to understand how children themselves organise their own learning and thinking.
Our Model of Learning
According to Caravita and Hallden, the analogy between children and scientist
“constraints rather than empowers the inquiry and the
interpretation of the learning processes occurring in the
classroom”(1994, p. 89)
We agree with these authors because the motivational, affective, social and contextual aspects should be considered in a model of learning. (Pintrich et al., 1993)
On the other hand, as Vergnaud says
”concepts cannot be defined solely by the structure: a
comprehensive analysis of concepts requires that we consider
the properties of the concepts, the situations in which the
concept is used, and the system of signs that subjects use to
think and talk about the concepts” (in Nunes, 1999, p.67)
Therefore, according to Giordan (in Astolfi, 1989) the proposals of activities of different logic could facilitate the learning of concepts and procedures of the scholar science.
We focus then on our model of science learning.
We believe that learning is a long process. The learner must be active in this process in order to be able to relate his/her previous knowledge (alternative conceptions) to the new one. The learner has personal needs, as Bruner says, some students can prefer a pragmatic approach and others a narrative approach. These needs could lead the individual process of learning. Besides, it is important to take into account the following elements: interaction with others, metacognition (thinking about one’s own mental processes), and the affective aspect of learning.
Why to Create Products of the Culture?
The main assumption during the design of the instructional sequence was that the emotional aspect of the "work of creation" could help students to get involved into the learning process. Besides, scientific concepts are type four functions, higher mental functions. Learning this type of functions implies the use of mediational tools of the culture and intermental activity as Vigotsky (1995) says in the genetic law of cultural development. In the same way fictional products are mediational tools, special tools of the culture.
Moreover, employing scientific concepts in different contexts scientific and fictional) can allow conceptual elaboration Egan, 1991, p.39) because concepts would accommodate, in Piaget terms.
In addition Vigotsky says that
“the creative activity of the imagination is related to the
richness of the experience accumulated by the human being, because
this experience is the material which fantasy builds
on”.(1972,p.9)
Ribaud (in Vigotsky, 1972) reminds us that when creative action is present there are affective elements.
Besides, Egan (in press, p.19) points out that stories orient “the hearer’s feelings” and can connect the emotions to the topics of the curriculum. This author (2000) states that the human being can have different kinds of understanding, somatic, mythic, romantic, philosophic and ironic according to the mediation tools acquired.
Some characteristics of the romantic understanding are the mega ergon, the great achievement, and the presence of the HERO and exotic elements. On the other hand, the philosophic understanding is related to the search of general laws and the use of the abstraction. We believe that scholar Physics learning is related to the philosophic understanding. However, we consider the romantic understanding can be taken into account for the design of our didactic strategy because our students are beginning with their formal science studies.
Description of the Instructional Strategy
The first class of this didactic experience the teacher told the students the story of Archimedes and the burning mirrors. An old tradition claims that Archimedes invented some mirrors capable of firing the Roman ships that were besieging the city of Syracuse during the Punic war. It seems that the Archimedean mirrors are a legend. However, several mathematicians of the 17th century did not agree, and tried - unsuccessfully - to construct the device attributed to Archimedes. (See References for more information about Archimedes and the Burning mirrors)
Wall painting from the Stanzino delle Matematiche in the Galleria degli Uffizi (Florence, Italy). Painted by
Giulio Parigi (1571-1635) in the years 1599-1600. (http://www.mcs.drexel.edu/~crorres/Archimedes/contents.html)
After telling this story the teacher made an experiment: the diffraction of a laser light with a hair. This experience allowed her to speak about the dual model of the light.
Finally, she gave the instructions to the students.
Each student was asked to create a fictional product employing physics contents, chosen by him or her, using the specific vocabulary of the Physics. They had a “process- folder” where they wrote the reason of his/ her choice, doubts, questions and thoughts about the physics content, the help they got from parents, friends, classmates and teacher, and about the process of creating the fictional product.
The “product” was individual, but they could join another classmates, consult the teacher and family.
Implementation of the Didactic Strategy.
The didactic strategy was implemented in two courses of Experimental Introduction to the Physics; first Physics course in the school, in the Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires, a secondary school depending on the University of Bs As, a public university.
Information about this study is summarised in table 1.
Number of students 72
Average age of students 14 years old
Duration of the didactic sequence 2 months and a half
Table 1. Information of the study
Information gathered during the research includes seventy-two process- folders, communication by e-mail between the teacher and students and the video records.
Results
In this paper we will analyse some aspects of this didactic strategy.
About formats chosen by students
Students created the formats of fictional productions summarised in Table 2.
Mystery stories
Comics
Pictures
Poems
Songs
Table 2. Formats chosen by students
To show briefly some aspects of these products we will describe a part of a comic, a mystery story.
Graphic 1
The graphic 1 shows a picture of a mystery story comic created by a student. The young man says:
- I´ ve got it. I know the answer. I know how to solve the case and demonstrate what really happened.
He was a detective, who could find the explanation of the case because of the Archimedes Principle.
About Physics topics chosen by students
The Physics Subjects chosen by students are depicted in Table 3.It is very interesting for Physics teachers to observe that students chose a lot of Physics subjects, even in their first Physics course.
OPTICS Reflection, Refraction, Rainbow, Light waves
MAGNETISM Forces, Field
GRAVITATION LAW Force, Circular motion
SOUND WAVES Risks, Characteristics
FLOTATION AND ARCHIMEDES PRINCIPLE
Balance, Equilibrium, specific weight
WAVES Light, Sound
Table 3 Physics topics chosen by students to work on.
The reasons of their choice were: curiosity, games in the childhood and advice from parents.
About the video prepared for the Conference
The video (the translations of the most important dialogues are in the Appendix) prepared for the Conference shows different moments in the classroom: the teacher giving the instructions, students consulting the teacher even after the class, students working in groups, students thinking about their work.
Finally students tell us about their emotion and thoughts about their work, their commitment and their involvement.
For example, Eduardo says
- “The subject I chose was the laser. I dealt with it because I had a laser and I wanted to know how it worked. I had bought it when there was the laser fever several years ago. At first, I wanted to make a model. It would be a five points star formed by the laser light. The idea was that the laser light could form the star with mirrors. But there were some problems, there was an accident. Two mirrors were broken. It was very difficult to form the star. Finally, I decide to write a story. My story takes place in a future Byzantine Empire; we are studying that in history. A lot of intrigues going on. And so the object of worship, the five points star, was stolen…
Another student worked on the reflection of the light in curved mirrors. She made a picture and a poem. She based her poem on The Aleph, by Borges. Besides, she built a model that showed two different emotional moments related to the reflection of her image in a mirror.”
Iraxte tells us
- “The mystery that mirrors have for me made me choose these subjects…”
Focusing on the didactic experience looking at students
We analyse this didactic experience regarding the strategies students chose. Some of them needed to make models and to experiment before the creation of the product. They wanted to work in-groups. It was possible to recognise the scaffolding between students, students and teacher and students and family. At the beginning of the didactic sequence lot of them found very difficult to “relate the physics” to something emotional.
They liked to speak about their project, their product. The product of their creation belonged to them.
The students needed to be certain about the physics contents before the creation of the product.
During the creation process they asked the teacher about their doubts about physics topics. Lot of them thought about their previous knowledge and about their thinking process. Frequently they had to break with the previous knowledge.
A lot of students productions showed some characteristics of the romantic understanding (Egan, 2000) i.e. the MEGA ERGON (the great achievement), the exotic, the hero.
Focusing on the didactic experience looking at the didactic configuration
It was a very big intellectual challenge, not only for the students but also for the teacher. The former could orient the project towards their personal goals, interests, and curiosity. This aspect facilitated the motivation.
The use of the process folder during the creation facilitated students’ metacognition. The context was multidiciplinaried.
This strategy proposed an expansive learning model (Engeström, 1991) opening the community of learning.
And finally, the emotional context allowed in most cases the appropriation of the Physics topics.
Summarising, it is possible to recognise some categories that we consider important for a meaningful learning, e.g. scaffolding, activation of prior knowledge, metacognition, expanded learning community, and an emotional context.
Conclusion
In this experience we have seen an active learner immersed in an emotional context that allows him to appropriate scholar scientific concepts. Students have started their individual process of learning from an affective meaning of the scientific knowledge. The voices of students, their learning needs appear. The production of cultural tools using physics contents in two different contexts has allowed them to increase their self- confidence and to appropriate the Physics contents.
We consider that at that age, 14, 15 years old the “use” of the romantic understanding could facilitate the transition to the philosophic understanding.
References
Astolfi,J:P. et Develay, M.(5e ed. 1998) La didactique des sciences. Paris: PUF (1ere ed. 1989)
Bruner, J. (1989) Realidad mental y mundos posibles. Barcelona: Gedisa
Bruner, J. (1996) The culture of education. Cambridge: Harvard University Press
Caravita y Halldén, (1994) “Re-framing the problem of conceptual change”. Learning and Instruction, vol. 4 (1), p.89-111.
Driver, R. Guesne, E. & Tiberghien, A. (1989, original in English, 1985) Ideas científicas en la infancia y en la adolescencia. Madrid: Morata.
Egan, K. (in press)An Imaginative Approach to Teaching Literacy.
Egan K.(2000, original in English, 1997) Mentes educadas. Barecelona: Paidós
Egan, K. (1991, original in English, 1988) La comprensión de la realidad en la educación infantil y primaria. Madrid: Morata.
Egan, K. (1994, original in English, 1986) Fantasía e imaginación: su poder en la enseñanza. Madrid: Morata.
Engeström, Y. (1991) “Non scolae sed vitae discimus: Toward overcoming the encapsulation of school learning.” Learning and Instruction, vol. 1 (pp. 243-259)
Nunes, T. in Schnotz, W., Vosniadou, S. & Carretero M.(eds)(1999) New perspectives on conceptual change. Oxford: Elsevier
Perrenoud Ph. (1990) La construcción del éxito y del fracaso escolar. Madrid: Morata
Pintrich, P.; Marx, W & Boyle, R. (1993) “Beyond Cold Conceptual Change: The role of Motivational Beliefs and Classroom Contextual Factors in the Process of Conceptual Change” in Review of Educational Research, Vol.63, No.2, pp.167-199
Posner G, Strike, Hewson and Gertzog, (1982) “Accommodation of a Scientific Conception: Toward a Theory of Conceptual Change”. Science Education, 66(2): 211- 227.
Schnotz, W., Vosniadou, S. & Carretero M.(eds)(1999) New perspectives on conceptual change. Oxford: Elsevier
Taber, K. (2000) Case studies and generalizability: grounded theory and research in science education In International Journal of Science Education, vol 22, no5, pp.469-487
Vygotsky L.(4ta ed.1998) La imaginación y el arte en la infancia. Madrid: Akal
Vygotsky, L. (1972) Psicología del arte. Barcelona: Barral Editores
Vygotsky, L.(1995) Obras escogidas. Madrid: Visor
Wertsch, J. (1998) Mind as action. New York: Oxford University Press
Wertsch (1991) Voices of the mind. Cambridge: Harvard University Press
References about Archimedes Life
http://www.math.unifi.it/archimede/archimede_inglese/curve/visita/schedaspecchi.htm
http://www.mcs.drexel.edu/~crorres/Archimedes/contents.html
Appendix
Summary (9 minutes) of two months of classes. Translation of the most important moments of the video)
First moment: (Teacher giving the instructions).
Teacher: - In some cases you had a doubt about the content but you lost sight of your doubt in the process.
Second moment: (Students consulting the teacher)
T: (speaking about the fictional product) I think that your idea is very interesting. But, what is the physics phenomenon?
S1: refraction.
T: - Yes, but what does refraction mean?
S:…
T: - ok, go and investigate together, now
Student 2: - (Trying to explain the magnetic spectrum of the horseshoe magnet)
- I don’t understand!!!!
Teacher: -It’s your doubt not mines. (Laughing)
Teacher: -What happened with the light when it passes to another medium?
S1: -It travels slower.
Teacher: -Yes, very good!!!.
Teacher: -You are thinking about your project and I am thinking about physics, why don’t we join the two ideas?
Third moment: (Students working on their projects)
(It is possible to observe a girl writing the story, thinking about this. Another student is building a model with pulleys, before working on the fictional product)
Fourth moment: (Students oral report)
1) S.1: - I chose magnetism because it always attracted me. When I was a child, I liked playing with magnets, chasing one with another…
2) S.3: - The subject I chose was the laser. I dealt with it because I had a laser and I wanted to know how it worked. I had bought it when there was the laser fever several years ago. At first, I wanted to make a model. It would be a 5 points star formed by the laser light. The idea was that the laser light could form the star with mirrors. But there were some problems, there was an accident. Two mirrors were broken. It was very difficult to form the star. Finally, I decide to write a story. My story takes place in a future Byzantine Empire, we are studying that in history. A lot of intrigues going on. And so the object of worship, the five points star, was stolen…
3) S.4: (Speaking about the light rays in concave and convex mirrors) - The mystery that mirrors have for me made me choose this subjects…
(This student based her poem on The Aleph, by Borges. Besides, she built a model that showed two different emotional moments related to the reflection of her image in a mirror) |
