Relações entre saberes e ações na constituição da atividade e prática docentes de professores de ciências

Abstract

Study the practice of the Science Teacher seems to be a promising way to reflect on teachers training in this area. In this research, our goal was to analyze aspects of the teaching activity in the way how the teacher express himself/herselfabout it and the mobilization of knowledge identified in his/her actions in the classroom in order to identify and systematize aspects that constitute the teaching practice. To achieve this goal, we seek to identify meanings attributed by Science teachers to teaching practice, as well as influencing aspects of these senses; Characterize and identify constitutive aspects of the teaching activity described by the teacher when referring to his/her teaching practice; Identify knowledge mobilized by a Science Teacher in action in a classroom; Analyze the process of teaching practiceconstitution from the action and the subjectivity. The cultural-historicaltheory of the proposed activityby Leontiev and the activity system proposed by Engeström were used as theoretical and methodological basis. The research was conducted in Escada, located in theAtlantic Rainforest Zone (Zona da Mata) of Pernambuco/Brazil, and the city of Montreal, Quebec/Canada, and it occurred in three stages: the first was exploratory, it consisted in the application of a questionnaire to 10 Science teachers (Chemistry and Biology), who work in 4 Public Schools in Escada/Brazil. The data contributed to the selection of subjects that participated of the following steps. The second stage consisted of interviews with 04 teachers acting in different contexts, two of them being selected from the questionnaire in the exploratory stage and 02 that work in Private Schools in Montreal/Canada and are members of the Interuniversity Centre for Research on Teacher Training and the Teaching Profession (CRIFPE), University of Montreal. The Engeström’s activity system is also constituted as a methodological support for the analysis of teaching activity system. The third stage consisted of video recording, observation and recording in field notebook of one of the teachers in action in the classroom. The data were analyzed from the articulation between the analytical tool proposed by Mortimer and Scott (2002) for analysis of discursive interactions in Science classes and aspects of the activitiessystem proposed by Engeström (2001). The results point to a teaching practice constituted of a variety of aspects as values, feelings, identities, which constitute senses that influence the teacher's actions. These aspects seem to be made on experiences lived by the teacher in basic training, initial and continued, as well as in the teaching activity in relation with the students, with other subjects from the school community, and participating in projects, building strategies, etc, and involve rules, division of labor and artifacts. Tensions emerged over different parts of production, exchange, in the relationship with the community and with the norms, as well as in distribution, but motivated reasons, such as overloading of the school curriculum, training gaps, needs of students and favored in themaking decision of teachers.