Kerstin Bergqvist

Seeing the light : Discourse and practice in the optics lab

The general issue addressed in this chapter concerns the relationship between perception and discourse. The empirical analyses reported focus on how students and teachers, working in the context of a physics laboratory in school, communicate about the properties of light. It is shown that, in order to understand the behavior of light in the experiments that are set up, one has to have access to elements of a theory of light that make the phenomena produced appear as significant according to a particular perspective. Thus, seeing in the sense of identifying something that is culturally and contextually significant is a sociocultural process that relies on discursive resources.

Conceptually blindfolded in the optics laboratory. Dilemmas of inductive learning.

In modern schooling, student activity and group work are emphasized as important vehicles for learning. Following the perspectives formulated by Piaget and other constructivist thinkers, self-discovery by students of scientific principles is seen as a means for avoiding the pitfalls ascribed to teacher centered lecturing. Teacher explanation in this pedagogical philosophy is often seen as counterproductive to real learning. In the study reported, it is illustrated by means of an example from student group work in a physics laboratory how the understanding of basic principles of optics do not follow from mere observation and physical manipulation of a particular type of educational instrument; the optical bench. It is argued that the optical bench itself is a product of a specific theory of optics and that it embodies principles of understanding the word which are discursive in nature and which are not accessible to learners unless they are provided guidance. In the instance analyzed, students already in some sense had an understanding of the principles illustrated (e.g., that light can only go straight forward, that it cannot go through solid objects, etc.), but they failed to realize the significance of these observations, since they fere not familiar with a theoretical position in which these observations called for an explanation. ‘Seeing’, also in the case of the optics laboratory, relies on the use of cultural tools that provide the observer with relevant contextualizations.