The Teaching of Physics by Inquiry: The socioconstruction of knowledge to measure gravitational acceleration

Abstract

Seeking alternatives to improve quality in education, this research addresses a proposal of Teaching Physics by Investigation, with the main objective of portraying the importance of planning in developing a Sequence of Investigative Teaching - SEI. The article aims to demonstrate the planning of the SEI, to apply in a public school the methodology of teaching through experimental classes and to disseminate to the academic society the results obtained. After analyzing the educational reality of a given local school, through the data of the Brazil Test and a diagnostic evaluation, approaching the specific concept of buoyancy, a SEI was proposed, which was divided into five stages: open questions; open problems; investigation demonstration; open laboratory and systematization of knowledge. To do this, during the SEI, we organized the room in groups of no more than five students so that, in partnership, they could make hypotheses and debates on the presented challenges. In this way, it was possible to verify that the SEI admitted to the students the socioconstruction of the knowledge, since it provided an educative experience of the teaching-learning process of Physics that enabled the students the means to measure, through experimental activities, the value of the acceleration gravitational force through the concept of thrust. Thus, highlighting the social role of the school and the teacher as agents of transformation and of the student as an active and responsive subject, the SEI is an example of a pedagogical practice of teaching physics that not only facilitates learning but, mainly, contributes to the autonomy and commitment necessary for the full development of the student and his preparation for the exercise of citizenship.