Development of Learner’s Graphical Representations in the Basic School Physics Course
Development of Learner’s Graphical Representations in the Basic School Physics Course
Tsaturyan Armen, Papyan Ani
Summary
Key words: age-related psychological characteristics, abstract thinking, interdisciplinary connections, functional dependency, analytical thinking, physical phenomena and processes
The graphical representation of dependencies is an important tool for mathematical modeling of phenomena and processes in teaching physics in basic school.
Considering the age-related psychological characteristics and mathematical training of students, it is necessary to combine the functional dependence represented in formulas and the physical essence of the problem to develop graphical representations in the physics course, and then explain the logic of the appearance of each point on the graph.
This approach facilitates the development of graphical representations in students and helps to overcome the abstractions that arise in the learning process.
The paper uses the example of uniform rectilinear motion to show how to organize training for basic school students so that they can construct graphs of the corresponding formulas, understanding the origin of each point forming the curves. This becomes more understandable for students when they are presented with mathematical dependencies that are adequate to physical formulas, and, following the example of constructing graphs of the latter, graphs corresponding to the formula describing a physical process or phenomenon are constructed in a similar way.