Speaker
Description
Context and Issue
Students approach physics courses with conceptions derived from common sense, often in conflict with scientific models. These conceptions are not the result of isolated errors, but of coherent cognitive systems, rooted in lived experience. The challenge for teaching is therefore not to eradicate these conceptions, but to understand their logic in order to guide students in a transition towards more scientific forms of reasoning.
Theoretical Framework
We draw on the three-phase model of understanding proposed by Trudel (2005) and Trudel, Parent, & Métioui (2009), integrating intuitive, conceptual, and formal dimensions. This model is enriched by research in qualitative physics and cybernetic modeling of understanding (Trudel & Métioui, 2011, 2016). Artificial intelligence (AI), in its qualitative form, becomes a heuristic tool to represent the implicit structures of intuitive reasoning.
Presentation Objectives
- To present a framework integrating qualitative modeling and conceptual change to support learning in kinematics.
- To demonstrate how such a framework enables the identification of students' conceptions about uniformly accelerated rectilinear motion.
- To offer teaching approaches for linking perceptual reasoning and scientific modeling in a school setting.
Methodology
The research is based on a theoretical and reflective analysis of previous publications, supplemented by the study of research journals, concept maps, and computer-assisted laboratory experiments conducted by high school students. A qualitative analysis framework is used to model the observed conceptual reasonings.
Expected Results
- A typology of intuitive reasoning in kinematics (e.g., judgments about uniformly accelerated motion).
- Pedagogical recommendations for integrating qualitative AI into physics teaching.
Keywords
Qualitative physics · artificial intelligence · cognitive modeling · common sense · conceptual understanding · kinematics teaching
| Contribution categories - primary focus | Primary and secondary school |
|---|---|
| Contribution categories - type | Research oriented |