Münster 2011 – scientific programme
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DD: Fachverband Didaktik der Physik
DD 4: Lehr- und Lernforschung 1 (Mathematisierung)
DD 4.1: Talk
Monday, March 21, 2011, 14:00–14:20, SR C
Using mathematics as a reasoning instrument in physics lectures — Ricardo Karam1,2, •Gesche Pospiech1, and Maurício Pietrocola2 — 1TU Dresden, Dresden, Deutschland — 2São Paulo Universität, São Paulo, Brasilien
In spite of the deep interrelations between physics and mathematics, confirmed both by historical and epistemological studies, in the context of physics education, mathematics tends to be seen as a mere tool to quantify physical entities and express relations between them. In order to face up to this inconsistency, we consider a distinction between technical skills, the ones related to the instrumental and algorithmic domain of basic calculation rules, and structural skills, which are related to the capacity of using mathematics as a reasoning instrument in physics. Aiming at investigating the approach of the latter in a didactic context, we have videotaped physics lessons on electromagnetism given by a distinguished Professor at the University of São Paulo. The analysis of these lectures with Videograph led us to a set of categories which represent the development of structural skills. These categories as well as the interplay between them along the course will be presented by examples extracted from the recordings. Our main goal is to derive promising teaching strategies to approach the structural role of mathematics in physics lessons.