ACTIVITIES FOR THE TEACHING OF WAVES BASED ON THE THEORY OF MEANINGFUL LEARNING

Abstract

This work describes the development, application and evaluation of activities for teaching introductory wave concepts to second year high school students, aiming at improving the quality of student learning. The activities were planned to be applied over 10 classes, for a class with 28 students, in a public school in Cachoeiro de Itapemirim-ES. The theoretical and methodological assumptions of Meaningful Learning were used to guide the activities carried out in the classroom. The structuring of the activities took into account the students' alternative conceptions reported in the literature. The relationship between the contents intended to be taught and what the student already knows was articulated through the use of different instructional resources (experiments, videos, simulations). The consolidation of the contents was articulated in the scripts of the activities and also in the application of conceptual tests according to the dynamics proposed by the Peer Instruction method. Data were collected from the teacher's notes and observations, from the records of students' responses to the conceptual tests and from the responses to the final individual assessment. The results reinforce the importance of the scripts to keep the students focused on carrying out the activities and to provoke productive discussions and reflections about the phenomena approached from the different instructional resources used. Conceptual tests are able to promote good quality discussions and are very well accepted by almost all of them. The persistence of post-instruction alternative conceptions was observed.