Contents and methods in the teaching of physics

Abstract

This article does not try to bring about the traditional controversy between content and method, that is to say between the tendency to teach Physics as set science and the tendency to reach the methods of Science and more specifically the so called scientific method. All the contrary, we start with the idea that pupils construct their own knowledge and that contents are the ideas about Physics that our pupils should learn, and also that methodology does not mean the strategies used by teachers to teach those contents, but the strategies pupils use to acquire that knowlegde. There are two ideas in this article and both of them analyze the deficiencies pupils have in Physics. One of the ideas have to do with the knowledge pupils should have in order to carry on learning Physiucs and the other deals with the differeut learning strategies that are necessary to reach meaningful learning and both ideas provide suggestions for teachers.