An analysis of the role of school in the formation of scientific concepts for visually impaired students

Abstract

To understand the process of formation of spontaneous and scientific concepts by blind children based on interventions that take place in the classroom, we present in this paper, qualitative research whose methodological option was a case study on the role of mediation for the formation of scientific concepts in these children. To collect data, we used didactic activities, which were planned and applied separately to second and fourth-grade classes of elementary school, in a school specialized in assisting people with visual impairment. The guiding questions of this research were: How does the school collaborate to the formation and transformation of scientific thinking in the visually impaired child? What is the role of the teaching and learning process in the development of scientific concepts in these subjects? To answer these questions, we used content related to Physics, as this is an area that allows children to reflect, considering their spontaneous and original ideas about how things work. The topics chosen were: energy, force, and movement. Based on the activities performed by the two classes, we compared the students' perceptions about the concepts in question. As a main theoretical contribution, we used Vygotsky's studies and his cultural-historical theory, which has as one of its principles the idea that learning and, consequently, the development of concepts does not occur through direct assimilation but through interactions with the environment, objects, and others, in which the subject, through these relationships, builds his own thinking.