A Tale, a Quantum: Investigating the Potential of Discrete Narrative Series for Introducing Quantum Theory Topics in the Classroom

The insertion of topics of Modern and Contemporary Physics (FMC) at medium level is advocated by an increasing number of academics who reflect on the teaching practice linked to this discipline (PEREIRA 2009 is a great example of a bibliographical review of the various approaches conducted). However, the structural difficulties - which begin with the abstraction of the content itself, permeate the teacher's formation and lead to the flaws and/or shortcomings found in the students' conceptual foundation - constitute, as a whole, a strong discouraging factor in opting for the approach of this theme. Aiming to contribute to the formation of structuring elements that adequately accommodate the revolutionary quantum concepts in the essentially classical schemes of cognitive articulation of students and teachers, the present work intends to organize, through a series of narratives, an introite to Quantum Physics that, by interacting directly with the target reader, is able to identify imperfections and/or conceptual gaps, to correct them dynamically and to offer an honest view of the process of scientific construction, typically distorted in the classroom - by the indirect action of the “content teaching program” As a theoretical framework accepted to support and develop the potential of narratives as vehicles of the teaching-learning process, this thesis will consider the work of the American psychologist Jerome Bruner, who, in the final phase of his life, devoted himself exhaustively to the investigation of narrative schemes and their influence on human thinking, especially how the human being relies on them to shape their experiences and thus to communicate learning situations. At the same time, to inspire a critical analysis of the technical and conceptual deviations found, the texts (narratives, in the strictest sense, called “A tale, a quantum - discrete narratives about the first steps of Quantum Theory”) will be based on the idea of epistemological obstacles, as originally suggested by the French philosopher and epistemologist Gaston Bachelard and adapted, in pedagogical version, by other authors (PESSANHA and PIETROCOLA, 2013). At first, it is intended here to provide a condensed view of the theoretical frameworks so that we can proceed with a more adequate description of the narratives and results arising from a first application of this material. These results will be duly commented on in the conclusions, accompanied by an analysis that critically redo the elaboration and conduct of the proposal.