La enseñanza en el laboratorio. ¿Qué podemos aprender en términos de conocimiento práctico y de actitudes hacia la ciencia?

Abstract

In this paper, the irreplaceable things that experimental activity introduces in teaching compared to other methodologies are highlighted. For students, practical work is about «understanding» and «learning», but also about something very different, «doing» and «learning how to do». In order to explore the classical notions of conceptual, procedural and epistemological goals, it is shown how theory can serve practice, while the opposite is currently more frequent. Practical work is an excellent way to learn physical theories.It is shown that, when procedures serve practice, experimental work is the occasion to acquire them. Lastly, when these contents are learnt along with a constructed view on science, they permit students initiative and autonomy. Previous research summarised here invites to review the goals of practical work in high school and college.