From Everyday Life Experiences to Physics Understanding Occurring in Small Group Work with Context Rich Problems During Introductory Physics Work at University

Abstract

How do students bridge everyday life views into physics understanding? We report from in-depth analysis of one group of four students, video-recorded over 135 min solving a context rich problem (CRP). Through transcripts of the group's conversations and from flow-charts made of the group talk we have categorised how students' experiences develop into physics reasoning. The conversations in the cooperative group are sometimes carried out by "exploratory talks", but there are also parts of the conversation where the students develop their own thoughts without response from the others. Some evidence is given of: 1) how the students use exploratory talks to reach consensus about the boundary conditions of the task; 2) how the students state the problem more precisely by starting to talk about experiences they have had and to use their experiences as arguments, and 3) how individual questions are formulated in a process of meaning making. We find in this casestudy that students' personal everyday life experience develops into physics reasoning during group talk. We argue accordingly for more time in the physics classroom to solve open ended physics problems which promote group discussions taking departure from own experiences and enhance physics understanding.

The Effect of Teaching Practices with Real Life Content in Light and Sound Learning Areas

“…These activities provide the students to understand the scientific concepts developing the students' problem solving skills and increasing their interests in cooperation and harmony. The Science Education focuses on helping the students love the Physics Concepts and Course, which is one of the dimensions of science concepts and difficult for students to understand, drawing the students' interests and making the learned items meaningful [3]. To provide this, it is thought that it can only be achieved by creating learning environments enabling the students associate the physics problems with their real lives.…”

Learning Physics in Small-Group Discussions – Three Examples

“…She notes that the students during the group discussions raise questions that have been identified in the literature as important difficulties for students, often overlooked by texts and instructors. Enghag, Gustafsson and Jonsson (2007) found that students reach consensus in group discussions using exploratory talk and that individual questions are formulated in the process of meaning making and that these questions recur during the conversations. Booth and James (2001) and Samiullah (1995) investigated the effects of student-student interaction on learning physics at university level.…”

Resolução de problemas abertos no ensino de física: uma revisão da literatura

“…Enfase em aprendizagem colaborativa: compreende artigos que investigam a resolução de problemas em grupo e avaliação por pares [23]; a qualidade das discussões em grupo, o nível de participação e a contribuição de cada componente nas atividades de resolução de problemas abertos e fechados [24]; avaliação da interação dinâmica entre os grupos em resolução de problemas abertos e fechados [25]; o discurso dos estudantes para melhor compreensão sobre quais os raciocínios dos alunos em resolução de problemas abertos [12], a hipótese da falha produtiva, que considera que mesmo que inicialmente os alunos apresentem grandes dificuldades, o ambiente e as discussões em grupo oportunizam melhores condições de desenvolver habilidades de resolução de problemas abertos [26] e investigação de comoé utilizada a experiência da vida diária nas discussões dos problemas [27]. Por fim, há o artigo de Camargo e Silva [28], que analisam uma atividade de Física elaborada e aplicada a alunos com deficiência visual, buscando a solução em grupo para um problema aberto sobre colisão entre um automóvel e um trem.…”

“…Apresentam, ainda, as seguintes características: (a) a variável desconhecida nem sempreé especificada; (b) o problema pode não apresentar todas as informações necessárias e (c) suposições podem ser necessárias para simplificar o problema. Para Enghag, Gustafsson e Jonsson [12,27], os problemas bem contextualizados devem, ainda, incluir motivação ou razão plausível para que os alunos se envolvam com o problema, permitir que os estudantes visualizem ativamente a situação utilizando suas próprias experiências e serem elaborados de forma a dificultar que a tentativa de resolução se dê em umaúnica etapa, por inserção de números em uma fórmula.…”