Title: Physics demonstrations for upper secondary school students - video study Author: Bc. Alexandr Nikitin Department: Department of Physics Education Supervisor: RNDr. Marie Snětinová, Ph.D., Department of Physics Education Abstract: Experiment is a key element not only for physics as science, but also for physics education. Even though attention has been lately focused more on students' hands-on experiments, demonstration experiments still play an important role in today's education. Department of Physics Education (Charles University, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics) has been performing physics demonstrations for upper secondary school students for more than 30 years. Seven different topics are currently offered by the Department. A survey conducted on a population of est. 5,100 students showed that the perception of these topics by students varies quite significantly, especially considering their intrinsic motivation and subjectively perceived value and usefulness of a given topic. The questions at hand are whether parameters that influence students' perception in negative or positive way do exist and how they are related to the choice of the experiments themselves or the lecturer's work with the audience. Aim of this thesis is to present a video study conducted on video recordings of all seven...

Made available in DSpace on 2017-07-24T19:45:50Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Luis Alexandre Rauch.pdf: 13794820 bytes, checksum: b9c61efb765c133ca989b82f0bed4b97 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-09-23 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / This study presents the development of the Product – In the strings of musical instruments – and analysis of its application. Basically, the Product is a set to study mechanical waves through experiments and the use of musical instruments, both created with alternative material which is easily available. The product aids the teacher and comprises: text with approach to the physical concepts worked in the classroom; texts supporting teacher’s work and texts supporting students’ work, unit plans and lesson plans; manuals guiding the apparatuses assembly and their use in the classroom. This proposal contains 08 (eight) sessions, distributed into 12 (twelve) lessons, which seek, from a teaching sequence, to approach wave basic concepts and develop those concepts at the high school level aiming at providing advances to the teachinglearning process regarding the students involved. In such elaboration, the activities were based on Ausubel’s learning theorie. Finally, from the Product use and analysis, it was seen that the sequence of lessons given made it possible to enhance the study of mechanical waves through strings, and the activities with musical instruments and experiments developed in the classroom provided the students better interaction with the content worked, since these practices motivated them to inquire and observe in their own context the physics content being studied. Therefore, the product application, through a differentiated practice, resulted in advances to the learning-teaching process in a meaningful manner. / No presente trabalho são apresentados o desenvolvimento do Produto Nas cordas dos instrumentos musicais – e análise de sua da aplicação. Em linhas gerais o Produto é um conjunto para o estudo de ondas mecânicas a partir de experimentos e instrumentos musicais, ambos confeccionados com materiais alternativos e de fácil acesso. Basicamente, o Produto é um material de apoio ao professor e contém: texto com abordagem dos conceitos físicos trabalhados em sala de aula; textos de apoio ao professor e textos de apoio aos educandos; planejamento de unidade e planos de aula; manuais de montagem dos aparatos e utilização destes em sala de aula. Nesta proposta foram planejadas 08 (oito) seções, distribuídas em 12 (doze) aulas, as quais buscam, a partir de uma sequência didática, abordar os conceitos básicos de ondulatória e efetuar a devida transposição dos conceitos em nível de ensino médio a fim de proporcionar avanços no processo de ensino-aprendizagem por parte dos educandos. Nesta elaboração, as atividades foram fundamentadas na teoria de aprendizagem de Ausubel. Por fim, da aplicação do Produto e posterior análise, constatou-se que a sequência de aulas realizadas possibilitou contemplar o estudo das ondas mecânicas por meio de cordas, sendo que as atividades dos instrumentos musicais e experimentos em sala de aula proporcionaram uma melhor interação dos educandos com os conteúdos trabalhados porque tais práticas instigaram os mesmos a perguntar e a observar em seu próprio contexto a física abordada. Assim, a aplicação do produto proporcionou, por meio de uma prática diferenciada, avanços no processo de ensino-aprendizagem de uma forma significativa.

Assessment, an integral part of teaching and learning, is a planned process of identifying, gathering and interpreting information about the performance of students. However, concerns have been raised about how assessment is being conducted in schools and so the aim of this study is to investigate and improve assessment practices used by Grade 12 secondary school Physics teachers in Mozambique, Africa. The study addresses the question of what assessment practices do Grade 12 teachers in Physics in Mozambique apply and how can they be improved? and it adopted a twofold research approach. A Baseline Survey aimed at gaining an overall impression of the assessment practices used by secondary school Physics teachers and an Intervention Study aimed at producing improvements on teacher assessment practices. The preliminary research followed a survey research method, while the intervention applied an educational design research approach. In the survey three questions were investigated: (i) What assessments practices do Grade 12 Physics teachers apply? (ii) What is the quality of the assessment practices? and (iii) How relevant can the assessment practices be for student learning?To address these questions a purposive sample of 12 Physics teachers, four school directors and five educational officers was selected. The survey was conducted in six secondary schools purposefully selected throughout the country and data were collected via interviews, questionnaires, classroom observations and written notes. The Intervention Study was designed to answer the question of how teacher assessment practices can be improved.This phase of the study involved a design, a classroom tryout, and a systematic evaluation of a series of exemplary Physics assessment materials (prototypes) in a context of demonstration experiments. The prototypes were developed for the concepts of force and inertia and their validity and practicality were verified using appraisal by experts, university students, teachers, and students. Classroom tryout was conducted with two teachers and their 62 students in two secondary schools. Baseline Survey findings indicate that the most used assessment practices in schools are paper-and-pencil tests, verbal tests, and homework, while projects, portfolios, and peer assessments are the less frequently used ones. Oral communication during lessons, written work, presentations, notebooks, laboratory work, and ability to solve problems were used as quality criteria for the teachers’ assessment. It was shown that the most frequently assessed student activity was written work, followed by the ability of students to solve problems, while laboratory work was the activity that was never assessed by many of the researched teachers. Another quality criterion used was the type of feedback given by teachers to students, which indicated that teachers were giving expressed (both congratulatory and critical), personal and timely feedback. It emerged that teachers often involve the students in the evaluation of their performance through reflection of assessment results and in addition, encourage students to engage in active learning. Findings from the Intervention Study indicate that (i) teachers liked the presentation and structure of the materials following the Predict-Observe-Explain (POE) strategy and regarded their personal commitment as crucial for achieving the desired experimental results; (ii) students also liked most the POE strategy because it allowed them to develop their own explanations of the observed events and highlighted the role of teachers during the tryout as crucial for the success of the experiments. The main conclusion of this study is that assessment practices undertaken by Physics teachers in Mozambican secondary schools are of poor quality and there is a need for improvement. This must be done by developing and applying exemplary assessment materials with the potential to improve performance assessment practices associated with demonstration experiments in Physics. The study recommends that the Ministry of Education and Culture and teacher training institutions should promote the training of teachers in developing exemplary assessment materials for their own use in schools. These materials should contain specific guidelines on how to conduct effective assessment practices. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Curriculum Studies / unrestricted