Construcción de modelos explicativos sobre tropismos vegetales por estudiantes que cursan cuarto grado de primaria del Colegio INEM Santiago Pérez.

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to present the way that students progressively attain scientific knowledge. Their natural world knowledge and class activities form the base from which they are capable of analyzing, reflecting and encourage them to take critical positions. Therefore, the goals that are suggested in this investigation are first to configure the learning environment where students would be capable of using explanatory models that allow them to interpret, understand or discover phenomena within the objects of study. The implementation of the didactic sequence from teaching for comprehension permitted the development of various explicative models about tropisms in students of the fourth grade in primary school in INEM Santiago Perez Bogotá, Colombia. In the analyses, the plurality in the interpretations can be demonstrated in a general way. It is like this in the primary phase of the investigation, the activity and the interpretation are constructs of the students. This is the reason why some of them understand the sequence of the biological process of germination and the other part does not do it; some of them implicate the water like a necessary element to the development while the other part of the students does not recognize it importance. Also, It is recognized two kinds of models, first is denominated material and second is denominated scientific. In total, 21 explanatory models were developed by the students, considered to explain the different types of vegetable tropisms: phototropism, gravitropism and hydrotropism. The models of sample material were representations in three dimensions that demonstrated in a graphic manner the phenomenon that it intended to communicate. The models developed by the students of INEM Santiago Pérez correspond to explanatory, material and didactic models. In those that evidenced a transformation of the initial ideas of the students about the stimuli that the plants perceive in their environment, a clear identification of the phenomena associated with growth is observed making clear the difference between the ways the plants respond facing changes in their growth in order to be able to respond to stimuli that are necessary for their development. keywords explanatory models,Tropisms, teaching for comprehension