Estudo do processo de co-construção de conhecimento em um contexto de ensino fundamentado em modelagem

Abstract

In this study, we investigate the process of knowledge co-construction in a modelling-based teaching context. For us, co-construction is a process in which there are interactions between the teacher and the student(s), or between the students, resulting in construction of knowledge. The aims of this study are to discuss: which are the main elements of the teachers actions that favour the occurrence of co-construction in the investigated context; which are the main skills showed by the students during the co-construction in such a context; the possibility of the co-construction being fostered by the students themselves (and how this process occurs); and general characteristics of the co-construction occurred in modelling-based teaching contexts. Data were collected in a second-grade class of the medium level in a public school in Belo Horizonte. In this class, the teaching of ionic bonding occurred from a modelling-based didactic unit that was previously validated in other teaching and research contexts. All the lessons were video-recorded and transcribed. From the transcriptions, we identified 18 moments in which the co-construction took place. The detailed analysis of such moments supported the characterization of both teachers actions and skills showed by students. Among other important aspects, our results made it evident that the most frequent actions used by the teacher were those concerning questioning students; the skills related to the elaboration of models were those most often shown by students; and the students were really able to foster the knowledge co-construction of their colleagues. From our results, we conclude that investigative activities, like the modelling-based ones, can favour the knowledge co-construction process. Therefore, we acknowledge the use of such activities in different teaching context as a way to contribute to a more comprehensive and authentic science learning.