A proposed sequence of activities inspired by Galileo to exercise reasoning and modelling about motion and frames of reference

Abstract

This paper presents a proposed teaching sequence by means of the description of teacher-mediated activities in a teaching sequence completed by primary and secondary education teacher trainees engaged in physics modelling. During the sequence, students solve a series of activities guided by the trainee teachers, whose discourse includes verbal and nonverbal communication and actions on or with physical objects, drawings, diagrams, graphs and other communicative resources. The students are guided through a process of knowledge building that begins with physical phenomena and advances through several levels of abstraction. This paper illustrates the process by analysing the narrative of the teaching sequence and the detail of some of the activities with the role of teachers and students in the physics modelling process.