Dra. Galina M. Kalibaeva, Dr. Raúl Pérez Marcial, Dr. Felipe
Cruz Pérez
Jefatura del Programa de Psicofisiología
Facultad de Psicología
UNAM
México, DF
rperez@campus.ccm.itesm.mx
One of the constants one can appreciate in the process of learning,
representation and solution of problems in teaching science is the
difficulty for the student to build concepts and utilization of laws. The
great majority of new didactic models that are used in teaching science
bring forth points of view, instruction sequences and didactic strategies,
that arise from the ideas and beliefs of the students.
Many of the problems in teaching science could arise from the instructional strategies that do not promote conceptual, epistemological and attitude changes in the student that are necessary for the understanding of the great differences between distinct concepts and laws. Another difficulty can be related with the fact that in ``habitual instruction'', comprehension and consideration of the validity of laws in referential models, are not taken into account; the students lack the criteria to understand the relationship between model and reference reality.
A very significant conceptual change is bounded to changes in the methodology of resolution, in the attitudes and in the epistemological concepts of professors and students. Currently we know that science learning and any other type of learning implies a cognitional transition that not only deals with experience and rational elements or the construction and efficient interrelation of schemes, but also the possibility that the subject of knowledge (the student) to be considered as an active element in the construction of that knowledge.
The latter implies, for the student, not only the capacity of reconstruction of his own beliefs and experiences for knowledge, apprehension and interpretation of natural phenomena, it also requires setting aside the hypothesis that attributed a strategy of linear and repetitive concepts, directed toward the generalization of principles, a practice that not always yielded the desired results.
Traditionally in the analysis of the psychological mechanisms implied in the process of teaching-learning it has been thought, for example that language is only a mediating element without taking into consideration its stimulating character that enables the student to react to his own symbolic representations of reality. It is precisely this reaction that will permit the consolidation of a whole series of elements that will later facilitate his learning and will make him solve problems more efficiently.
Ignoring the latter, led to the idea that exposition of the concept and its illustration in a verbal manner in the resolution of problems, were enough to assure the mastery of the material being taught. The strategy of describing verbally the mechanism of solution substituted the reflexive representational construction. All the hypothesis' cognitive processes and functions were erased by a pretended objectivism that made us believe that by carrying out pragmatic sequences and objectives would be enough by itself to assure the success of our students, but things did not go like that.
We believe that the functionalist and inductive hypothesis should be set aside when teaching physics, instead embracing a cognitive posture that ponders along with deductive reflection the representational symbolic aspect.
In practical terms, what we are proposing is not to limit ourselves to the verbal description or resolutive strategies, on the contrary we search for the construction of a reflective-deductive ``systematization'' that will permit us the certainty that our students are not only experienced in the solution of problems, but also in the generalization and expansion of his resolutive possibilities.
In science teaching there are two types of problems according to solvability; there are the ones that are possible and the ones that are impossible. In such cases the possibility-impossibility is judged by certain shallow criterium of solution, we think that any problem is solvable in the proportion that the student has the possibility to access distinct levels in the representation of the problem.
What we are proposing is not an ability to solve any problem, but a reflective-deductive systematization that allows the student the reflection and apprehension of his own knowledge at the moment of representing the problem that is being proposed. We refer to this systematization as ``Procedures''.
This will allow us to face one of the fundamental problems in the teaching of the mathematical-physical sciences: the significative high indices of failure and the low levels of assimilation of the student at the end of the school period. The attention of the teachers has been principally directed toward finding strategies teaching-learning that will enable to raise the levels of assimilation and yield in class, in other words to improve overall efficiency.
Here we propose, from a cognitive point of view, the development and implementation of a systematization strategy for the procedures that are involved in the application of a physical concept or law. We also show the effects on total efficiency, where it produced a significative difference in the levels of assimilation in the groups where this systematization was applied.
The comparative analysis of the data obtained shows that problem solution systematization in physics helped to: