O pensamento crítico no ensino de Ciências: estudo das estratégias didáticas de países latino-americanos

Abstract

The present investigation addresses, as its theme, the interrelations between Critical Thinking (CT) and Science teaching strategies in the Latin American context. Our intention is to identify and analyze the concepts, references, and teaching strategies, from the perspective of CT in Science, in different Latin American countries. This qualitative research, adopting a bibliographic and documentary approach, was grounded in content analysis and is organized into three main phases: i) The development of a literature review and the establishment of a state-of-the-art regarding the main theme; ii) the analysis of official educational policies (curricular guidelines and teacher training guidelines in Latin America; iii) the analysis of elementary school Science textbooks (LDCEF), always taking Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, and Peru) as a reference for analysis. In the first part of this study, we conducted a literature review and state of the art on the concepts, references, and teaching strategies that Latin American researchers have used to discuss CT in Science teaching. The results indicate that Latin American research is strongly influenced by CT in the perspective of rational and reflective thinking, focused primarily on Ennis and Portuguese scholars Tenreiro-Vieira and Vieira. Among the main teaching strategies used to promote CT are Sequences/Didactic Units, Experimentation, Argumentation, and Problem Solving. In the second part, we analyzed the Curricular Guidelines and Teacher Training Guidelines of Latin American countries to identify concepts, references, and teaching and teacher training strategies present in these documents. The results from these analyses revealed that the policies have been showing indications regarding a focus on PC emphasizing critical action, and teaching strategies that take reflection into account are more geared towards a critical profile (Reflective and Critical). These aspects are primarily discussed in the guidelines of Chile, Peru, and Colombia. In the third part, we conducted an analysis of 10 LDCEF from Latin American countries with the aim of to recognizing the pedagogical potential of teaching strategies in promoting PC in Science teaching. Four main empirical categories emerged from the analysis: Informative (698:1909), grouping complementary and additional teaching strategies analogous to traditional teaching; Exploratory (758:1909), teaching strategies that, when well mediated by the teacher, have the potential to develop some PC skills such as thinking, interpreting, researching, and questioning; Reflective (385:1909), strategies that can trigger reflection, autonomy, and interactive student participation; and Critical (68:1909), classifying teaching strategies that enable and stimulate critical being/acting, considered the most expected for developing education from the CT perspective in Science. We may observe that the perspective of PC in Science teaching in the Latin American context is under development; however, there is still a need to advance in theoretical-conceptual and methodological terms towards a PC focused on critical reflection on the world, emancipation, and social transformation.