Building scientific knowledge

This course provides an initial introduction to key concepts in the didactics of scientific disciplines, and to research in the didactics of science in general, and of their discipline of origin in particular. The aim is to examine how scientific knowledge is reconstructed in the classroom, with a view to teaching.

The aim is to provide an academic foundation (theoretical and methodological elements) by crossing didactic issues relating to mathematics, physical, chemical and biological sciences.

It consists of a pragmatic presentation of the various approaches specific to the didactics of these disciplines, and case studies focusing on issues linked to the teaching of concepts specific to the disciplines studied.

In this course, students will work on documents made up of classroom corpora, recordings of class sequences, extracts from textbooks or programs, scientific texts and didactic writings.

• To be able to look back at one's reference discipline by questioning the way it is taught and learned.

• Be able to identify the driving role of problems in the progressive construction of scientific concepts, in relation to the notion of epistemological obstacle.

• Be able to identify the relevant variables in a problem situation in relation to its learning objectives.

• Be able to identify errors linked to conceptions in student work, and their role in the development of knowledge by recognizing the limits of their field of validity. This is also linked to epistemological obstacles.