Abstract:

About 50 years ago the most widespread method of teaching was purely receptive. Discovery learning (causal or directed) followed afterwards, and now is widely accepted that meaningful learning is the more effective educational system. The question is, what will be the preferred pedagogical method in a few years? How many years will last this trend to consider meaningful learning as the best teaching method? In the present work we have constructed a reasoning entitled "Is our brain physiologically constructivist?” in order to highlight the need for meaningful learning in the teaching of physics.
Specifically, we want to show that constructivism is not just another pedagogical trend. Physiologically, our brain is so constituted that works searching for the meaning of the information it receives and, therefore, meaningful learning is not a teaching option, but a physiological requirement of our brain.

Currently, little is known about the influence of the physiology of the brain in its way to conceptualize, but it is widely studied its physiological way to visualize (create visual images) in which the brain function is "to actively construct our visual world". The processes of visualization and conceptualization have many common characteristics. What is done in both is to abstract the constant features of either the "objects" or the "objects or events" and build either a visual world or a cognitive structure. We could therefore "extrapolate" what is known of the brain process of viewing to the brain process of conceptualization.

If the brain works very similar when visualizing and when conceptualizing, and we highlight that when the brain visualizes what it does is search for the meaning of the information that reaches it, we can reach the conclusion that when the brain conceptualizes what it does is search for the meaning of the information it receives, and, therefore, that meaningful learning is not just a new teaching trend, but the way our brain functions.

Keywords:

Meaningful learning, physics, didactics, constructivism.