Sistema especialista em termodinâmica: análise da construção de significados mediada por interfaces virtuais

Abstract

This dissertation focused on investigating the contributions that an Expert System (ES) in Thermodynamics, content of 2nd year of high school, can make the process of teaching and learning, making an analysis of meaning making with new virtual interfaces, with the final product a dynamic and engaging educational materials for student and teacher, able to stimulate the study of physics and the teaching assistant. For this, we work with a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) focused on a SE in Thermodynamics. An ES is a type of Computational Intelligence, which can be viewed as an artificial intelligence and is able to present findings on a particular topic, if properly oriented (PY, 2002, p.3). Thermodynamics chose because we observed in our practice that students confuse basic concepts of this content. The SE can be used for other subjects as well as in various contents. The theoretical research is the Meaningful Learning of David Ausubel, conveyed through the SE as a tool for teaching and learning. To choose the search field, a group of physics teachers, students of the Professional Masters in Science Teaching, State University of Paraíba - UEPB to verify the effectiveness of this teaching resource in their teaching. As our group discussed the ideas and suggestions proposed by the group of students and this contributed to this work, this research now has the character of Case Study of Participant Observation. It was evident in the results of our interviews that SE is effective in the process of teaching and learning, which confirms the objective of this work. It also assists the teacher, as it offers an innovation in how we evaluate, because the system shows the difficulties and achievements of students, thus creating a visual report of the results. Thus, we conclude that this material contributes to the educational process, since it is potentially significant because motivates students to learn physics, particularly thermodynamics.