Cognitive models to understand students´ mistakes

GALAGOVSKY, L

San Juan de Puerto Rico

Simposio; Symposium:Best practices in the teaching and learning of chemistry: international sharing of methods, insights, and results43rd. IUPAC World Chemistry Congress,; 2011

IUPAC y Colegio de Químicos de Puerto Rico

The challenge to teach Chemistry in High School faces difficulties concerning the large scope of macroscopic descriptions and submicroscopic explanations involved. The objectives of the presentation are: ·        To introduce to the Processing Information System as a clue to understand students´learning difficulties. ·        To show Chemistry as a complex discourse expressed through multiple languages and analyse some cases of students´ mistakes. To learn Chemistry traditional syllabus novice students need to understand phenomenological behaviors of materials, physicochemical interpretations of such behaviors, and a huge variety of topics unrelated with their everyday life. In this presentation some concise concepts of the Human Processing Information System will be introduced. From that issues questions emerge: what kind of students are well prepared to process Chemistry discourse?, which are the abilities for good teachers to lead successfull classes? Cognitive models may help teachers to learn about students’ learning obstacules and constitute a friendly platform to become aware of teachers’ responsibility to improve communication during their classes.   References Galagovsky, Lydia (2004).  Del Aprendizaje Significativo al Aprendizaje Sustentable. Parte 1: el modelo teórico. Revista Enseñanza de las Ciencias, 22(2) 230-240. Parte 2: derivaciones comunicacionales y didácticas, ibid. 22(3), 349-364, Universidad Autónoma  de Barcelona, España.   Galagovsky Lydia (2007). Enseñanza vs. aprendizaje de las Ciencias Naturales: El papel de los lenguajes y su impacto en la comunicación entre estudiantes y docentes. Revista Episteme, Tecné y Didaxis, número extra pp 66-87. Universidad Pedagógica Nacional, Bogotá, Colombia.