Construção e interpretação de gráficos da cinemática: uma proposta para o ensino médio politécnico

Abstract

The idea of the current research occurred from studies of Literature in the Science Education field regarding the difficulties faced by Basic Education students in drawing and interpreting graphs and also from the professional experience of the author, a Physics teacher of Basic Education. The project was conducted at Escola Estadual de Ensino Médio Jerônimo Mércio da Silveira, in Candiota-RS. Aiming to overcome students’ learning difficulties and to provide better conditions in the use of graphs in different areas of knowledge, this proposal was connected to Integrated Seminar classes, a component introduced into the curriculum in the Polytechnic High School modality since the reformation of High School by the State Department of Education of Rio Grande do Sul (Secretaria Estadual de Educação do Rio Grande do Sul - SEDUC-RS) in 2011. Therefore, it is understood that there is a great potential of integration when working with graphs as it is common to find various types of data and everyday life information presented in this form, related to many areas of knowledge such as Economics, Biology, Sociology, and others. Furthermore, it is known the importance that the domain of basic mathematics concepts - including the construction and interpretation of graphs– has for a good understanding of Physics contents. The work in question was developed according to curricular orientation described in official education documents and grounded on contemporary learning and development theories based on constructivism and interactionism. In particular the theories which emphasize the ideas defended by David Ausubel and Lev Vigotski. Priority was given to teaching-learning situations based on the concepts of progressive differentiation and integrative reconciliation proposed by Ausubel, and of zone of proximal development, by Vigotski. The technical production was created as a Didactic Unit consisting of two modules and applied in two classes of the first year of High School from the morning shift. The first module emphasized the study of the Cartesian plan, necessary knowledge for understanding and studying graphs. In the second module, it was approached the construction and the interpretation of graphs in Kinematics, emphasizing the use of technologies as didactic resource. The work done in the integrated seminars has also been monitored by verifying the potential in the employment of graphs to express data from different areas of knowledge of the High School curriculum, and analyzing the interdisciplinary articulation occurred through the use of graphs. The results demonstrated that the activities proposed in the Didactic Unit consist in an effective possibility for the introduction to graphs study, of Kinematics mainly, as after its realization the students developed abilities to locate points in the Cartesian Plan, applied the abstract knowledge in a concrete situation (rectification of concepts), collected time and motion data correctly, located them in tables, and constructed graphs of this motion by using the tabulated data. In addition, the students demonstrated capacity to interpret and analyze constant time, motion and velocity data in graphs of the uniform motion and reproduce this motion by using an automated car and a motion sensor. Nevertheless, by analyzing the work presented in the Seminars we concluded that the use of graphs was adopted by only one of the ten groups. We indicate as future perspective a new study, reapplying the first module and adapting the second to different areas in the Physics field and also in different curricular components in the context of Integrated Seminar classes of the Polytechnic High School.