Teaching chemistry in Adult Education: relationship between Thought Styles and teacher training

Abstract

The goal of search referred to in this article was to identify elements characterizing Thought Styles (TS) of teachers serving in chemistry Adult Education (AE) in the State of Paraná, and if these TS are affected by the initial and continuing training. The analytical category TS, developed by Ludwik Fleck, was used as a helper in identifying how knowledges structure in specific field of study, in this case the teaching of chemical in AE. For that, were compared the teachers TS with and without participation in training courses, analyzing the teachers practice, ideas and values from interviews with the same, using the principles, dialogical-problematization, proposed by Paulo Freire. We have tried to highlight and assess the form of influence of initial training, time of expertise in teaching, and in specific, of continuing training courses on how to understand the scientific knowledge and teach to the students of the AE. Using the Discursive Textual Analysis it was made a comparative study between the TS present in his teaching, its contradictions and conceptions, through which installed show the existence of Thought Collectives (TC) that aggregate teachers around certain TS.