We present the results of an ethnomethodological study about a Physics classroom, developing a descriptive approach to this learning environment. Activities involving simulations, pen-and-paper exercises, and experiments were arranged to expose students to various learning environments. The interactions among some groups of students were video- and audio-recorded, and analyzed. When comparing them, we highlight and analyze situations in which the interactions experienced in the different environments contribute to the description of the characteristic features of the practice of teacher and of students. The production of narratives is the main instrument of description. We identify the 'ethnomethod' of directing the interactions to obtain the correct answer. We show how this procedure, shared by teacher and students, interferes with the questions made to the teacher, and in the way the latter exercises the listening in the dialogue with the students. The classroom is characterized as a place of simultaneous actions that occur beyond the teacher's control. We discuss the expressed concepts of objective and activity as a way of dealing with this impossibility of control. We call attention to the diversity of styles of students' conducts, and we analyze its implications. Finally, we discuss the consequences of seeing the classroom as a place where a specific social practice occurs, particularly with respect to the obstacles to the transfer to its interior of the results of researches that imply in modifications to this practice.
Ethnomethodology; Learning environments; Physics classroom; Teaching of Physics
