A prática como componente curricular na formação do professor de biologia : contribuições?

Abstract

This study aimed to research the contribution of the Practice as a Curricular Component (PCC) on Biology teacher´s formation. In order to do the research, we analyzed the official documents that talk about the PCC courses; we interviewed three teachers who were responsible for these courses and we applied a questionnaire with ten students who had taken all the PCC´s disciplines. There were created analysis categories, based on the legislation related to PCC activity, according to its distribution on curricular base and on workload and according to the theoretical texts that argue about the inherent knowledge and competences to the teacher´s practice, like: a) kind of knowledge emphasized and b) competences developed. The range of the answers we found allowed us to identify that PCC is concretized at the mentioned graduation course through courses disposed into blocks, which are distributed along the graduation course, during a 400 class hours workload. Related to the kind of knowledge emphasized, the class plans on PCC courses emphasize the theoretical knowledge, either related to the specific knowledge, or to the pedagogical knowledge, diverging from the legislation. The answers given by the students suggest that both theoretical knowledge and practical specific and pedagogical knowledge are emphasized in most of PCC courses. In the interview with the teachers, two of them suggest an emphasis on the theoretic-practical part of the pedagogical knowledge, while the third one emphasizes the specific and pedagogical knowledge´s theory. Related to the competences, the teacher´s answers indicate that both the class plans and the courses attendance aim do develop the reflexive competence. The pedagogical competence is found in some courses and the technological competence is the less developed. We reckon that, in relation to current legislation to the PCC activity on teacher training courses, the researched graduation course follows the recommended rules. However, the fact of not offering some courses related to pedagogical and specific contents before two PCC courses (Morphology and Physiology Practice and Genetic Practice) might compromise students development and, consequently, their formation. We conclude that, according to the knowledge and competences described on the professional profile of Biological Sciences graduated, the courses need to be adjusted and improved to follow the aimed official profile, once we found incoherencies between the documents, the teacher´s speech and the way the students see the course.