No description available.

The problem of this study involves identifying and ranking in importance the characteristics of effective teaching assistants in the learning environment of an open physics instructional laboratory.

LIMA, L. P. P. Olimpíadas de Física e o Ensino de Física Experimental. 2017. 248 f. Dissertação (Mestrado Nacional Profissional em Ensino de Física) - Centro de Ciências, Universidade Federal do Ceará, Fortaleza, 2017. / Submitted by francisco lima (admir@ufc.br) on 2017-06-21T19:05:50Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2017_dis_lbpplima.pdf: 2139916 bytes, checksum: 8c9036669c4be8c7d0fa4ee8a17dbd51 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Giordana Silva (giordana.nascimento@gmail.com) on 2017-06-23T15:42:16Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 2017_dis_lbpplima.pdf: 2139916 bytes, checksum: 8c9036669c4be8c7d0fa4ee8a17dbd51 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-23T15:42:16Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2017_dis_lbpplima.pdf: 2139916 bytes, checksum: 8c9036669c4be8c7d0fa4ee8a17dbd51 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017 / The Scientific Olympiad is a tool used in many countries of the world to optimize teaching / learning processes and to encourage high school students, or equivalent, to pursue technological careers. In Brazil, the Brazilian Physics Olympiad (OBF) is an important program maintained by the Brazilian Society of Physics that aims to contribute to the development of Physics teaching. One of the main objectives of the OBF is to prepare students to compete in International Physics Olympiads. These competitions are important because they provide a benchmark for assessing the world- wide physics teaching we are practicing. However, there is a lack in the available literature of works that do this evaluation at world level. Thus, in this work, first, an analysis was made of the success of the OBF in the preparation of students through the results obtained in the International Physics Olympiad (IPhO). Positive and negative points were investigated, aiming to construct an educational product that contributes to the improvement of the program. We analyzed the performance of Brazil in the editions in which it participated and verified whether there was evolution in the overall performance. Then, we analyze the performance separately in the Theoretical and Experimental tests, comparing with the overall performance. We also analyzed the results in a school's OBF 2016 and compared it with the overall results of all participants. The analysis indicated that the contribution should be made in the teaching of Experimental Physics. Finally, as an final product of this work, an experimental physics booklet was developed for teachers and high school students. The handout addresses the concepts of experimental physics in a language appropriate to high school students and teachers. / Dissertação de Mestrado apresentada ao Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ensino de Física da Pró-Reitoria de Pesquisa e Pós-Graduação da Universidade Federal do Ceará no Curso de Mestrado Profissional de Ensino de Física (MNPEF), como parte dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do título de Mestre em Ensino de Física. As Olimpíadas Científicas são uma ferramenta utilizada, em vários países do mundo, na otimização dos processos de ensino/aprendizagem e no incentivo para que alunos do ensino médio, ou equivalente, sigam carreiras tecnológicas. No Brasil, a Olimpíada Brasileira de Física (OBF) é um importante programa mantido pela Sociedade Brasileira de Física que visa contribuir para o desenvolvimento do ensino de Física. Um dos principais objetivos da OBF é preparar os alunos para competirem em Olimpíadas Internacionais de Física. Essas competições são importantes porque fornecem um parâmetro para avaliarmos em nível mundial o ensino de Física que estamos praticando. No entanto, há uma carência na literatura disponível de trabalhos que façam esta avaliação em nível mundial. Assim, neste trabalho, primeiramente, foi feita uma análise do sucesso da OBF na preparação dos alunos através dos resultados obtidos nas Olimpíadas Internacionais de Física (International Physics Olympiad – IPhO). Foram investigados pontos positivos e negativos, com objetivo de construir um produto educacional que contribua para o aprimoramento do programa. Analisamos por dois diferentes critérios o desempenho do Brasil nas edições em que ele participou e verificamos se houve evolução no desempenho geral. Então, analisamos o desempenho separadamente nas provas Teórica e Experimental, comparando com o desempenho global. Também, analisamos os resultados na OBF 2016 de uma escola e comparamos com os resultados globais de todos os participantes. A análise indicou que a contribuição deveria ser feita no ensino de Física Experimental. Por fim, foi desenvolvido, como produto final deste trabalho, uma apostila de Física Experimental destinada aos professores e alunos do ensino médio. A apostila aborda os conceitos de Física experimental em uma linguagem adequada aos alunos e professores do ensino médio.

No description available.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Curriculum and Instruction / Dean A. Zollman / The work described here represents an effort to design, construct, and test an interactive online multimedia learning environment that can provide physics instruction to students in their homes. The system was designed with one-on-one human tutoring in mind as the mode of instruction. The system uses an original combination of a video-based tutor that incorporates natural language processing video-centered lessons and additional illustrative multimedia. Our Synthetic Interview (SI) tutor provides pre-recorded video answers from expert physics instructors in response to students’ typed natural language questions. Our lessons cover Newton’s laws and provide a context for the tutoring interaction to occur, connect physics ideas to real-world behavior of mechanical systems, and allow for quantitative testing of physics. Additional multimedia can be used to supplement the SI tutors’ explanations and illustrate the physics of interest. The system is targeted at students of algebra-based and concept-based physics at the college and high school level. The system logs queries to the SI tutor, responses to lesson questions and several other interactions with the system, tagging those interactions with a username and timestamp. We have provided several groups of students with access to our system under several different conditions ranging from the controlled conditions of our interview facility to the naturalistic conditions of use at home. In total nearly two-hundred students have accessed the system. To gain insight into the ways students might use the system and understand the utility of its various components we analyzed qualitative interview data collected with 22 algebra-based physics students who worked with our system in our interview facility. We also performed a descriptive analysis of data from the system’s log of user interactions. Finally we explored the use of machine learning to explore the possibility of using automated assessment to augment the interactive capabilities of the system as well as to identify productive and unproductive use patterns. This work establishes a proof-of-concept level demonstration of the feasibility of deploying this type of system. The impact of this work and the possibility of future research efforts are discussed in the context of Internet technologies that are changing rapidly.

O presente trabalho, através da produção e verificação de um conjunto de materiais e métodos, é uma proposta de uso do computador, conectado à Internet, no ensino médio de Física da rede pública do estado de São Paulo, visando a orientar os professores da área, quanto ao uso dessa tecnologia de comunicação em aulas presenciais. Para tanto, foi levado em conta o cotidiano do aluno como foco principal do conteúdo abordado; o reconhecimento das concepções espontâneas dos alunos para a sua superação; o caráter de construção permanente da ciência, ao abordar aspectos históricos; e o reconhecimento da Física moderna e contemporânea. O desenvolvimento do mesmo, não só contou com o resultado de algumas pesquisas publicadas, seja no campo específico de ensino de Física, ou na área de educação à distância, como teve também por base análise de experiências feitas em sala de aula. O estudo mostra que para as escolas nas quais a infra estrutura existente é satisfatória, o computador e a Internet são recursos consideráveis para se obter um melhor desempenho do aluno no aprendizado de Física, desde que sejam aplicados com métodos e materiais mais interativos. Deste modo, a aula e a própria disciplina ficam mais atrativas. Por outro lado, para as escolas, cuja infra-estrutura é insuficiente e inadequada, a Internet ligada ao computador são recursos que por si só não contribuem para uma mudança significativa no ensino desta disciplina, havendo necessidade do professor mudar sua atitude frente ao uso destes recursos tecnológicos e da própria aula apresentar um caráter investigativo / The present work, related to the production and verification of a set of materiais and methods, is a proposal of the use of computers, connected to the Internet, in the medium levei of Physics courses of public schools of São Paulo State, looking to a guide for the teachers, with relationship to the use of that communication technology inside the classes. We taking finto account the quotidian of the student as main focus of the approached content; the recognition of the students\' spontaneous conceptions; the character of permanent construction of the science, approaching to historical aspects; and, the modern and contemporary Physics. The development of the work, not only related with the result of some published researches, in the specific field of teaching of Physics, or in the area of distance education, as also had for base experiences done in classroom. The study shown that for the schools, in which the existent infrastructure is satisfactory, the computer and the Internet are considerable resources to obtain a better acting of the student in Physics learning, since with the applications of interactive methods and material. In this way, the class and the own discipline are more attractive. On the other hand, for the schools, whose infrastructure is insufficient and inadequate, the Internet linked to the computer is a resource that by itself doesn\'t contribute for a significant change in the teaching of this discipline. It is necessary a change in the altitude of the teacher front to the use of that new technological resources

Submitted by ALEX HENRIQUE GONÇALVES BASSI null (alexhbassi@terra.com.br) on 2017-02-02T00:06:07Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação ME ALEX BASSI - RECURSOS AUDIOVISUAIS NO ENSINO DE FÍSICA.pdf: 1394018 bytes, checksum: d4464fbd544fe5b6e9a2c10aa2769028 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by LUIZA DE MENEZES ROMANETTO (luizamenezes@reitoria.unesp.br) on 2017-02-06T13:31:08Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 bassi_ahg_me_prud.pdf: 1394018 bytes, checksum: d4464fbd544fe5b6e9a2c10aa2769028 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-02-06T13:31:08Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 bassi_ahg_me_prud.pdf: 1394018 bytes, checksum: d4464fbd544fe5b6e9a2c10aa2769028 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-12-07 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Este trabalho tem por finalidade analisar uma ferramenta de ensino e aprendizagem que vem ganhando maior atenção nos últimos anos devido à modernização dos meios de comunicação e à facilidade da aquisição de equipamentos tecnológicos, são estes, os chamados vídeos educacionais. O corpus deste trabalho, contudo, não foi produzido por profissionais da área explicando determinado conteúdo, como a referência a esse tipo de vídeo sugere, mas, sim, pelos próprios alunos de física de ensino médio, tendo como tema central a utilização de experimentos, bem como sua montagem, realização e explicação. Essa metodologia auxilia na questão de o professor poder transformar duas aulas semanais de cinquenta minutos em várias horas de atividades extras, além permitir aos alunos a possibilidade de estudarem as variáveis de cada experimento, não ficando restritos a um molde de trabalho manuscrito e à simples pesquisa na internet. O trabalho foi desenvolvido na Escola Estadual Iria Barbieri Vita de Mirassol – SP, no primeiro semestre de 2016, sendo aplicado em uma sala do terceiro ano do ensino médio, composta por 35 alunos que foram divididos em sete grupos de cinco alunos. A avaliação dos trabalhos foi realizada mediante a análise dos vídeos produzidos pelos grupos e por questionários elaborados por cada grupo, que foram aplicados aos demais alunos da sala após assistirem cada um dos vídeos produzidos por seus colegas. A análise dos vídeos foi feita de forma a verificar o conhecimento científico construído pelos alunos, também levando em conta sua interação com a câmera, além da oralidade, da desenvoltura, da capacidade de trabalhar em grupo, dentre outros fatores que ultrapassam os conteúdos, referindo-se ao lado atitudinal dos alunos. / This paper aims to analyze educational videos, i.e. a teaching and learning tool which has drawn increasing attention in the last years due to modernization of the means of communication and ease of purchasing technological devices. However, those videos were not produced by professionals explaining certain subject, as their reference might suggest, but by high school students of physics. Moreover, their main theme was the conduction of experiments, as well as their assembly, fulfillment and explanation. That methodology helps stretch two weekly fifty-minute classes into many hours of extra activities, considering the students should spend some time doing researches on the experiment, recording videos and editing them. Furthermore, this method gives the students the opportunity to study a wide range of possible experiments and their variables, avoiding being limited to a handwritten assignment format and the simple internet search. That project was developed at Escola Estadual Iria Barbieri Vita from Mirassol – SP, in the first semester of 2016, done by a group of 35 students from the last grade of high school, divided into seven groups of five students. The evaluation of the work was done through the analysis of videos recorded by students as well as questionnaires prepared by each group of students, which were applied to other students in the class after watching their classmates’ videos. The video analysis was made in order to check the scientific knowledge built by the students, considering their interaction with a camera, speaking skills, their resourcefulness, interpersonal skills, among other aspects that go beyond the content of the subject studied, involving students’ attitudinal side.

Magister Educationis - MEd / The purpose of this paper was to examine the use of the multiple representation approach as a teaching strategy to improve learners understanding of vectors in Grade 10 Physical Sciences. The study also wanted to consider the MR approach through the lens of the learners. A sample consisting of 45 Grade 10 learners from a total of 160 Grade 10 Physical Sciences learners participated in the study. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected and analysed. Learners were first given a pre-test to establish their initial understanding of vectors. This pre-test was followed by an intervention in the form of a lesson. The lesson was conducted in order to expose learners to learning through Multiple Representations. A post-test was then administered to determine the impact of the intervention. To gather and quantify the learners’ perceptions on the use of Multiple Representations in teaching and learning of vectors in Grade 10 Physical Sciences learners were given questionnaires to complete. The last step was interviewing of learners to triangulate the results from the three instruments. The study found that learners were struggling with understanding of vectors in their traditional chalk-and-talk lessons and their perceptions towards vectors were negative. The study also found that Multiple Representations can improve understanding and develop positive perception of learners towards the teaching and learning of vectors. This improvement occurs only if Multiple Representations is used correctly. The study further found out that when Multiple Representations is used improperly it limits deeper understanding by learners. A number of recommendations were made out of the findings of the study. Some of them were that multiple representations should be used when teaching vectors and that subject advisers and teachers should be developed on the proper use of multiple representations. The Physical Sciences textbooks must be designed to accommodate Multiple Representations.

Physics learning has been the focus of much research over the last few decades. One line of such research has had knowledge about physics conceptual understanding as its object. Conceptual physics learning is found to be enhanced by the use of a variety of interactive engagement teaching and learning strategies. Another line of research in physics education has been through the development of computer-based learning environments as alternatives to traditional lecturing approaches. One such development has been that of a 'physics Studio' in which computer software delivers content and facilitates activities and communication, and instructors adopt a tutoring or learning facilitator role rather than lecturing role. Curtin University of Technology has drawn on both lines of research, resulting in the creation of a Physics Studio. In addition, a constructivist philosophy has provided guiding principles underpinning the conduct of first year physics classes. The aim of this study has been to evaluate students' physics learning in first year Studio classes. In particular, the aim has been to examine the role of students' epistemological beliefs (beliefs about knowledge and knowing) and their perceptions of the learning environment, in that learning. The study is situated across the fields of psychology and physics education research. It uses an ex-post facto comparative research design together with a qualitative methodology to compare students in Studio classes with those in physics classes in a traditional lecture stream. The use of multidimensional scaling as a technique for reducing complex data to a visual form for the purpose of describing and investigating the Studio learning environment is also explored. / Findings from this study suggest that a Studio approach that incorporates student-centred, social constructivist teaching and learning behaviours can result in improved learning for students in a discipline such as physics, which is normally associated with authoritative and didactic teaching. The results indicate that most students responded positively to the characteristics of the Studio approach. Their learning outcomes and improvement in conceptual understanding exceeded those of students in the traditional lecture classes. Students' beliefs about the structure of knowledge affected their cognitive outcomes through their preference for particular learning strategies. Students with 'naive', positivist epistemological beliefs were more likely to choose a narrow range of learning strategies and to have poorer cognitive outcomes. Students with more 'sophisticated', constructivist epistemological beliefs were more likely to choose a wider range of learning strategies and to have better cognitive outcomes. There is evidence from this work that the constructivist learning environment influences students' epistemological beliefs, and that their beliefs influence the way they respond to the learning environment. Using multidimensional scaling, spatial configurations of learning environment parameters for Studio and traditional groups, although structurally similar, were visibly different. In particular, the preferred learning environment of Studio students formed a complex web of interrelationships, whereas the preferred learning environment of students in the traditional course formed a simpler pattern with minimal interrelationships among parameters. / Other factors affecting the responses of students to the constructivist learning environment were their perceptions of the nature of the subject matter as represented by assessment tasks, and their expectations about the role of instructors. Some students were unable to change their epistemological beliefs and learning patterns to fit teachers' expectations. These findings have implications for teachers of physics who adopt or wish to adopt constructivist rather than didactic teaching methods, and for those implementing Studio approaches. An instructor's best efforts to implement alternative teaching approaches and methods can be circumvented by the beliefs and attitudes of students if they are inconsistent with the epistemology implicit in the teaching methods. For example, students with naive beliefs in the structure and certainty of knowledge need guidance and experiences that provide validity for different ways of learning physics. Students also need help to understand the concept of, and to value, self-reflective learning practices. Finally, learning in a Studio class is enhanced for students whose beliefs are consistent with, or change to suit, the philosophy underpinning instruction.

A prototype multimodal tablet application for learning the physics of motion has been developed tested and evaluated. By moving their finger across the screen the application enables the user to map its position and velocity in real-time in terms of graphs. The learning outcome of those test subjects using the application was compared to a group that had the same procedure shown to them, as well as getting an explanation of all the physics involved. There was a small but not significant difference in performance between these groups on a post-test. However, a larger (arguably significant) difference was seen between the male and female test subjects for the sub-set of questions of a more analytical nature.