Science: from practice to teaching The importance of research episodes in teacher formation

Abstract

   Current researches into teacher formation show different aspects in their approaches. To teach science, a professional is required to have more than knowledge of the contents and possession of good didactic skills. Teacher formation (initial and continued) is a broad problem, and a challenge, facing the innumerous questions already raised by experienced professionals in this field. Our research is directed at permanent teacher formation (initial and continued), giving priority to the relationship between DOING SCIENCE and TEACHING SCIENCE (VIANNA, 1998), while attempting to compare scientists practice at laboratories with teachers’ science. We analyzed a refresher course for High School teachers of Biology in Rio de Janeiro. We highlighted the parts of this course that took place in research laboratories, which we refer to as “research episodes,” showing what participants gained from this experience: knowledge about scientists’ practices, what they do, what they say, how they behave, how they interact, what they build, what they publish in their articles and why, that is: TO EXPERIENCE DAILY SCIENTIFIC PRACTICE. We looked at these “episodes” according to LATOUR and WOOLGAR (1988, 1989, 1994, 1995, 1997). The teachers who attended the course were queried about its influence on their teaching formation. They emphasized the perception they gained about how scientific knowledge is built, the passion researchers have for their activity, the new technologies and instruments used nowadays, and their desire to adopt a new approach in the classroom. Our work points out the need for a permanent teacher formation, establishing an analogy between scientific and pedagogic research with teaching practice.