TEACHING COMPLEX THEMES AT UNIVERSITY: ANALYSIS OF THERMODYNAMICS CLASSES

LORENZO, MARÍA GABRIELA; QUINTERO, TERESA

Paris

Congreso; 50th general assembly & 47th IUPAC world chemistry congress; 2019

IUPAC

Specific university science education research is required to improve science teaching and learning ofhigh abstraction level contents.Thermodynamics is a complex realm of knowledge that includes specific concepts, models and theoriesorganized by mathematical notation, physical equations, graphics and a large technical vocabulary. Thisparticular knowledge is a fundamental part in professional education of Physics and Chemists.Scientific language requires argumentation as a thinking tool as well as an important part of scientificdiscourse. Argumentation should be thought and be part of teaching strategies (Erduran, 2004). In thissense, the way that the teacher uses the language of thinking would offer relevant clues to analysecommunication in class and the cognitive processes that it promotes in students. The vocabulary ofthinking allows people to describe the mental states and processes, mainly in three different functions:to mark an epistemic posture, to depict a cognitive process, and to describe an intellectual product.(Tishman, Perkins & Jay, 1997).So, the goal of this work is to analyse the vocabulary of thinking in the explanation of thermodynamiclectures with the following objectives: to describe university lectures features and to recognize thecognitive processes that are promoted by those lectures to the students.Three lectures about thermodynamics were registered (9 hs) and then they were studied. He was aPhysics researcher, with 20 years as a university teacher (without formal teacher education). The wholeclass transcriptions were analysed. The results showed that the 99% of the words were said by theteacher, and only 10,6% were verbs of thinking. Most of them refer to low order cognitive processes(affirm, consider, define) and just a few to high order ones (analyse, evaluate).The teacher organized his class to present and transmit the contents in order to reinforce conceptualmeaning in such a way that he promoted the students? rote memory instead of their understanding.