Physics Teaching Process: A Constructivist's Perspective

The dissertation tries to make a survey on the process of physics teaching and investigate the issues of physics teaching from a constructivism perspective. Based on this logic starting point, the dissertation plans to discuss from macro, middle, and micro layers.Following the development sequence of behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism, the dissertation points out that behaviorism regards the teaching process as one in which teachers strengthen 'stimulus-response connection', and that cognitivism views the teaching process as one in which teachers help accelerate the formation and reorganization of learners' internal psychological construction to process the exterior information. Three types of major theoretical tropism in constructivism are expounded, and their reasonable aspect used to discuss the issues of subject teaching - giving prominence to the subjectivity of the cognitive individual - is pointed out; and the social dimensionality in the process of cognitive development is emphasized. Based on the discussion above, the dissertation clarifies that constructivism regard learning as a constructive process in which learners' cognitive activities interacts with the existing cognitive construction, and regard teaching as a process in which teachers assist and promote learning.Traditional epistemology separates cognitive individual and exterior world, and views knowledge as the representation of the world that is a transferable cognitive object; however, the constructivism epistemology puts emphasis on the cognitive individual's own impact on cognition, and cognition is the unification of subjectivity and objectivity.The essence of constructivism teaching process is that learners construct their understanding on objective world and meaning from interaction with the teachers' help. On this basis, the dissertation analyzes three major factors - learners, teachers, and teaching environment. In constructivism teaching process learners are characterized as independent and active, while teachers' functions are assistance and promotion, and teaching environment is the interactive environment of communication and interlocution. Further four phases in the constructivism teaching process are summarized:(1)the exploration and analysis of learners' pre-knowledge; (2)the establishment of teaching and learning environment;(3)the interaction in teaching and learning environment; (4) the construction of meaning. The various forms of constructivism teaching process -explorative learning, cooperative learning, context learning and problem-solving learning - all accord with the essential characteristics of constructivism teaching process.As the practice of theory and analysis, the dissertation discusses constructivism physics concepts teaching. Firstly, a research is carried out to explore and analyze the students' pre-knowledge on several relevant topics including mechanics, thermodynamics, and direct circuit, which indicates that there already exists the understanding of the physics phenomena in students' mind before the physics lessons although their cognitive structures do not accord with the scientific viewpoints. Grounded on this contradiction, the strategies and modes of physics concepts changing are discussed. Then the instruments and methods with which the students construct meaning are probed into by introducing the application of concept mapping in physics teaching process, which explains that it is one of the effective ways in constructivism physics concept teaching to instruct students to construct physics concept maps.Finally the dissertation answers the question "Does physics teaching need constructivism?" The answer is certainly positive. Nevertheless, the answer to the question "What does physics teaching need from constructivism?" is more important. The clarification of this question is exactly the aim and significance of this research. The reasonable kernel of constructivism should be accepted to achieve the goal of further optimizing physics teaching process and enhancing teachin...