O ensino do movimento oscilatório a partir de situações problema estruturadas através do software Modellus

Abstract

It is not uncommon that Physics classes are seen by students as dull, tiring and showing no connection with the real world. We believe that happens because teaching Physics has become a sequence of strategies based on expository classes and on the resolution of problems that emphasize equations through which the contents are perceived by students as already finished and far from their daily lives. Besides, most of the times, students and their experiences are not taken into consideration in the whole teaching process. Therefore, any professional who intends to promote a different teaching environment has to take into account that students are a vital part of their knowledge construction, and thus, they are supposed to participate, discuss and suggest during the classes. Teachers, on the other hand, should function as mediators, not as the only ones who have an amount of knowledge. In this way, the objective of our research paper is to investigate the contributions of the computational modeling software Modellus, a computational tool which allows interactive simulations that can be applied to the Physics teaching process in a didactic investigative sequence about the Oscillatory Movement. In order to achieve our aim, we take into consideration the concept of didactic sequence as developed by Zabala (1998), the concept of investigative activities as proposed by Zômpero and Laburu (2011) as well as Gèrard Vergnaud‟s concept of situation that comes from his Theory of Conceptual Fields. Our teaching plan consists in posing problem situations that will be solved by students by means of simulation activities throughout ten meetings. Doing so, we hope to engage students‟ curiosity towards Physics and to stimulate them to actively participate in their knowledge construction process.