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Teaching physics by integrating the traditional experiment, the computer controlled experiment and computer simulation.
M. Fonseca, A. Hurtado, C. Lombana, O. Ocaña
Universidad Distrital, Francisco José de Caldas, Bogotá - Colombia
Proyecto Curricular de Licenciatura en Física
Grupo Física e Informática



GIREP Seminar
2003


In the ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) age, computer science progresses and provides new tools for learning processes. Universities are now under curricular reformations to find or adjust their ways of teaching, incorporating didactic technological tools. Computer science has become an almost indispensable tool to support the different disciplines, including education with virtual learning scenarios.

To understand the modern the technologically developed world, it is necessary to have knowledge on physics. Sciences of the nature (physics as part of them), have themselves a high cultural value.

Traditionally teaching physics has been seen as theoretical conferences followed by experimental demos or practices based on a set of instructions. We think that experimental work should be focused as an approach which conceives the learning as a construction of knowledge, in this case, of nature. So, it is necessary to the student get familiarized with the activities of scientific work, to be able to understand what he studies. in is this way, it is very important to present the physics experiments as problems to solve or small investigations to carry out.

So, if we should lead the interest of the students to a problem situation, whose solution should involve: some “thinking”; doing numerical calculus by hand, doing some numerical experiments, by using a computer; doing single experiments; doing experiments with data acquisition equipment and computer data analysis; doing simulations by using or developing suitable software for mathematics or physics. The use of the interactive laboratories of simulation let the students to enlarge the number of studied phenomena, since they don't have to be limited to the analytical soluble ones provided by the text books

To elevate the quality of the learning and of the teaching of the physics including the use of technological tools not isolated, and to provide and /or explore a possible methodological alternative to teach physics, we have been working with some students of last semesters of Licentiate in Physics at the Distrital University, in “Teaching physics by integrating the traditional experiment, the computer controlled experiment and computer simulation”.