USE OF CONCEPT MAPS IN THE TEACHING-LEARNING PROCESS AND STUDENT ENGAGEMENT FOR LEARNING NEWTONIAN MECHANICS

This paper reports the use of concept maps with high school students enrolled in an integrated technical course in Railways at a federal institution in Espírito Santo. Concept maps are an attempt to represent relationships between concepts in the form of propositions. The maps were used throughout the 2023 academic year. The aim of using concept maps was to serve as an auxiliary tool in the teaching-learning process and engage students, promoting their active participation in the construction of knowledge on topics of Newtonian mechanics. Six maps were created during the year, one as training and others related to Physics topics. These maps were presented and discussed with the class and the teacher. We present two versions from three students chosen randomly. The concept maps showed conceptual evolution and also demonstrated the improvement of the concept mapping technique. It was also possible to detect an improvement in the handling and refinement of the tool used to create the maps, CmapTools.