As compreensões e práticas de professores de ciências nas inter-relações com a Educação CTS

Abstract

This study arises from concerns about my teaching practice, and it is research about comprehensions and practices of science teachers and the inter relation with the Science Technology and Society Education (STS). The research is qualitative and was accomplished in three steps, in which a dialogue is developed between researchers in the area of Science Teaching and STS Education, in order to investigate how the teaching practice based on these assumptions is being developed in the current educational scenario. The data processing during the research was according to the Textual Discourse Analysis (TDA). Initially, we aimed at investigating what is being produced about teaching practice and STS Education, in order to answer the following question: How has STS Education been presented in the processes of teacher’s training and teacher’s practice in Science? In this way, we investigate the research papers produced from post graduations that are directed to the teaching practice based on the assumptions of STS Education and continuing education. This step showed that the assumptions of STS Education have been linked to teaching practice in a hesitant way and, the lack of teacher training on STS is one of the highlights in the research papers, which directly implies in the speeches, understandings and actions, which limit the teaching practice focused on this approach. The second step investigated teachers working in the area of Natural Sciences, to investigate their understandings about STS Education in the inter-relations with their practices, using questionnaires and interviews as research as tools, in order to deepen the understanding about the teachers formation process and the relationship between teachers formation and their teaching practices and the assumptions of STS Education, indicating that the intentionality of the planning and teaching practice are directly linked to teachers formation. Finally, we accomplished the investigation of the teaching practice based on self-reflection, in order to search for the potentialities listed in the teaching performance regarding to STS Education, based on the reflection of my own teaching practice, using the logbook as a tool. As a development initiative for this step of the research, we use a didactic sequence about a controversial theme of pesticides. We choose this theme because of the students’ context; they were from an agriculture region and the use of pesticides is wide. In this way, by proposing a thematic approach developed according to education assumptions on STS we investigate how the teaching practice works using an approach which the contents are related to the theme. The thematic approach and the STS Education can be allies in the development of teaching practice and, based on this, we highlight the potentialities and challenges not only from the literature review but also from the research conducted with teachers working in the area, and also the reflection of the teaching practice, which provided us with elements on the need for reorganization of school curriculum aiming at the critical education of students. The development of the didactic sequence based on STS occurred in a punctual way, and, although there is a tension towards a curriculum reorganization based on themes, specific insertions contribute to teachers’ formation. The understandings about STS Education need to be expanded in Science teacher education so that the teaching practice can add STS elements and relations from themes that contribute to an approximation among life contexts and curriculum organizations.