Um estudo dos saberes acerca dos modelos e da modelagem no ensino de ciências : possíveis contribuições de um processo formativo

Abstract

The study about teacher‘s knowledge related to models and modeling on Science teaching appears in a context in which the initial and continued teachers training processes are rethought. In this work we assumed that teachers mobilize on their practice the knowledge they acquired during their personal lives and their professional training, which contribute to teachers´ professionalization. We aimed to analyze the construction of knowledge related to models and modeling on continued science teachers‘ training. Five teachers took part on the research in a first moment, which worked as a pilot study. The research, then, was based on this collected data. In a second moment, four teachers took part on all the research steps. In order to elucidate the objective of the investigation, was formed a focal group, using questionnaires and observation as research instruments. Besides that, it this group was constituted a continued teacher training process, in which were used lesson plans elaboration, that focused on the concepts of model, modeling and teacher‘s knowledge. The data analysis was divided in parts: the first one, related to the focal group data, was based on the Textual-Discursive Analysis; to analyze the continued teacher training, were created categories which emerged when the training process was happening; and to analyze the lesson plans which were developed by the teachers, were created categories from the plans‘ reading. It was possible to notice that initial teacher training is not enough to prepare the trainee teachers to well understand the questions related to this research. Thus, continued teacher training is actually necessary. However, the whole process depends exclusively on the stimulus which is given to the teachers and on their willing to learn new techniques and apply them to their pedagogical practice. As for the teacher‘s vision about model and modeling, we verified that, in most of the times, they know what these concepts are, but are not able or do not want to put them in practice in their classroom. Besides that, we noticed that when teachers take part on an adequate training, they are able to understand that these concepts might help on their classes. As for the factors which help or cause obstacles on teachers‘ knowledge building related to models and modeling, we can say that many teachers still base their pedagogical practice on their old convictions and sometimes they have wrong concepts about the topic. Because of that, many times teachers reduce these processes to simple experiment conduction, once their lesson plans have a strong experimental characteristic. Besides that, the study about models, modeling and teacher´s knowledge might contribute on the sense of giving options to the teachers to have a different pedagogical practice and that does not incur the traditional standards. In this sense, this research shows how teachers behave when facing this challenge.