Teaching Strategies For The Transformation Of Scientific Concepts In High School Mechanics

In the past decades, many studies in physics education has been geared to students' preconception, which is the intuitive knowledge about physics phenomena held by students before formal physics learning. Preconception has constituted one of the most important issues in recent physics education.Based on the constructivism paradism, the present research was designed to investigate the preconceptions among secondary students and to find out the method to facilitate conceptual change. The first part of the study is an investigation, which manifests that preconceptions exist quite commonly among secondary students and form the robust barrier to scientific understanding. In the second part of the researchu, a teaching model is designed to change learners' preconceptions in classroom context. In reference to the "Interactive-Engagement method", this model includes five steps aiming at conceptual change. A comparative experiment of eight months has been conducted to examine the effects of the teaching method. In results, learners receiving this teaching method outperform those in control groups significantly in changing their preconceptions, constructing scientific understanding, and transferring acquired knoqledge in new problem situation. In particular, the persuasive experiments in the teaching activities contribute a lot to the eliciting of cognitive conflicts and the construction and memory of scientific conceptions. This method is more powerful in encouraging students' active learning and thinking, which is the core issue in contemporary educational reform.