O átomo em foco : entendendo sua teoria a partir de uma situação de ensino

Abstract

The presente research was developed with the purpose of elaborating a teaching situation that facilitates students’ understanding of the construction of atom theory and also analyzes the understandings promoted and the identified difficulties. The locus of the research was in a state school district in the inland of the state of São Paulo where the research teacher teaches with students of the second grade of high school. Seven activities were developed and carried out in which the actie and effective partipation of the student was prioritezed, explaining the different atomic models with due care, aiming to promote the ruptures necessary for learning and to deconstruct the idea that the atom was discivered and thenstudied, showing that its theory was constructed.The activities were neither carried out individually or in pairs, according to their goals. At Each stage we identified that different understandings were promoted and presented difficulties. The tools used to diferente understandings were promoted and presented difficulties. The tools used to analyze the data were: the unitarization where all the units of meaning that were later grouped according to their similarities. Finally, the communicaton stge where the descriptive and interpretative texts about the thematic categories were elaborated. At all times we seek to articulate the results with the literatute that points out the importance of factors such as active participation and the development of cooperation activities for learning. The researcher developed diferente functions at each stage, sometimes articulating, explaining the activities that should be carried out by the students, and in others, making conceptual notes and promoting debates, Always with the purbose of analyzing the advances during the process. Among the implications or contributions ofthe research for the área we can highlight the importance of the teacher being attentive to the “design” of a didactic proposal that takes into accont the active participation of the students throughout the learning process of contentes, be they conceptual, atitudinal or procedural. The proposal Suggested and analyzed in this work evidenced its potencial for the study of the atom concept.