Proposta de uma sequência didática para o ensino da relatividade geral no ensino médio com a utilização da realidade virtual

Abstract

A didactic sequence based on virtual reality for teaching general relativity throughout high school. It is not new that technologies have been affecting humanity’s way of life and the way how people interacted. In the learning-teaching process, where technologies are ever closer to students and the classroom, the evolution is not different. In this context, a tool that has been obtaining space is Virtual Reality, where the individual has the possibility to visit other environments without leaving his/her place. In this study, we elaborated a didactic sequence by using Virtual Reality and following the precepts of the theory of meaningfulness of David Ausubel. This theory establishes that learning is considered significant when the knowledge to be learned anchors itself on concepts relevant to students. We used the scientific basis on the phenomenon that occurred in Sobral/CE, and for what proves the General Relativity from Albert Einstein. This theme is resident in the context of modern physics in high school which has been a great challenge for researchers and teachers seeking forms of how to approach this in teaching. Thus, we trying to understand how virtual reality can impact the teaching and learning process of General Relativity, we developed this teaching sequence. We share our approach into five moments, where students' prior knowledge is the starting point, and, in one of those moments, we also used a didactic space-time curvature experiment that complements the virtual reality software simulation, whose simulation was in the fourth moment of our sequence. All equipment and experiments of this sequence possibility the use of low-cost items. The educational product, that is the teaching sequence, was applied in the second half of 2019 in a public school in the state of Rio Grande do Norte. And based on the results obtained from the application and perception with objective criteria for measuring success. From that, we can deduce that the use of virtual reality together with a teaching sequence, can bring positive results and improvement in student performance during the teaching and learning process. Moreover, we measured indicative of meaningful learning when teaching the thematic. Globally we concluded and we are believing that this proposal to use Virtual Reality, can be helpful throughout other levels of teaching, and impacting other contents. Lastly, we believe that our work can contribute to future applications and the practice of teaching.