On-line collaborative learning for in-service teacher education

This article brings some of the results of a study that analyzes a hybrid course for in-service teachers in the Project Teletandem Brazil: foreign languages for all. In this project, Brazilian teachers of Spanish as a foreign language took part in a blended tandem learning course, communicating via videoconferencing with Uruguayan teachers of Portuguese as a foreign language. The aim of the study was to verify Brazilian teachers' concepts and beliefs concerning language and culture and how the teletandem interactions affected them. After the interactions, teachers' views of culture seemed to also incorporate aspects of culture as an interpersonal process, instead of the factual and static view which was previously predominant. Therefore teacher education programs must consider the possibility of conjugating theory and reflective practice through the use of videoconference tools in order to allow teachers to experience culture rather learn facts about it. © 2011 ACADEMY PUBLISHER.

Environmental education and the health risk question: how do we educate the educators working with this theme?

Our society is presently seeing a trend of continuous increase of risk with severe consequences, especially those linked to environmental aspects. It has obligated us to reflect on this production and its effects, either positive or negative, and, after a long reflection, to think about the adopted model of civilization and the possibilities of changing such a model. The educational institution is among the social departments responsible for this revision process, since it represents one possibility to promote a more critical vision from society, providing it with tools needed for a more responsible action. However, schools are dominated by a traditional work, which does not allow for enough and proper attention to these relevant and current questions, and which involve a critical analysis of the conceptions and values established by our civilization, resulting in the present patterns of science-technology-society relations and their influence on the environment and health. Several research works have indicated a diversity of barriers that obstruct this necessary change. Since formal education plays an important role in the education of society for this theme, in this paper the possibilities and difficulty dealing with this problem are discussed, focusing on the question of teacher education, based on investigations related to teacher education programs for environmental education. The data collected show the urgency for introducing this theme in teacher training programs, taking into account the fact that educators have their own conceptions, values and attitudes that should be considered in these programs.

DIFFERENT MEDIA, DIFFERENT TYPES OF COLLECTIVE WORK IN ONLINE CONTINUING TEACHER EDUCATION: WOULD YOU PASS THE PEN, PLEASE?

This paper presents some findings regarding the interaction between different computer interfaces and different types of collective work. We want to claim that design in online learning environments has a paramount role in the type of collaboration that happens among participants. In this paper, we report on data that illustrate how teachers can collaborate online in order to learn how to use geometry software in teaching activities. A virtual environment which allows that construction to be carried out collectively, even if the participants are not sharing a classroom, is the setting for the research presented in this paper.

Collaborative language learning in Teletandem: a resource for pre-service teacher education

This article presents some of the results of a qualitative research project about the influences of the pedagogic strategies used by a mediator (graduate student in applied linguistics) in the supervision process of a Teletandem partner (undergraduate student in languages) on her pedagogical practice. It was done within the project Teletandem Brazil: foreign language for all. Based on the reflective teaching paradigm and collaborative language learning, with special emphasis on tandem learning, we analyzed the contributions of the collaborative relationship established between the graduate student and the student-teacher in her first teaching experience. The results bring about implications for the field of language teacher education in a perspective of education within practice, evidencing the experience of collaborative learning in teletandem as an opportunity for reflective teacher education of pre-service teachers.

A teoria das representações sociais nos estudos sobre representações de professores

A pesquisa apresentada analisou 27 teses de doutorado e dissertações de mestrado de programas brasileiros de Pós-Graduação em Educação que usam a teoria de representações sociais para estudar representações de ou sobre professor. Para a realização dessa análise foram investigados, principalmente, aspectos metodológicos relacionados ao uso da TRS, tais como: modo de descrição dos sujeitos da pesquisa e variáveis selecionadas nessa caracterização; descrição do objeto de estudo, sua contextualização e justificação como objeto de representação social; procedimentos de coleta de dados, sua adequação e justificação; tratamento dos dados; procedimentos de análise; síntese dos resultados e sua contribuição para a educação, para a formação de professores e para a TRS. Concluiu-se que a TRS é pouco explorada nos trabalhos, embora, de modo geral, eles contribuam para aclarar as representações que professores têm a respeito de vários campos que compõem sua vida profissional.

Internet e formação de professores de matemática: desafios e possibilidades

Pós-graduação em Educação Matemática - IGCE

Necessidades de formação continuada de professores do 1º ciclo do ensino fundamental

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Um projeto de interação Universidade-Escola como espaço formativo para a docência do professor universitário

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

A Concepção de prática na visão de licenciandos de matemática

Pós-graduação em Educação Matemática - IGCE

Desafios da formação docente no curso de Pedagogia: aligeiramento e pragmatismo

This paper analyzes recent policies of teacher eduation in Brazil related to the employment and professional dimmensions of the teaching career. It analyzes teacher education policies, and the guidelines established by the World Bank in the 1990s, to reform higher education in the so-called developing countries, focusing on th implementation of neolibera educational policies. These policies have produced a "new" value for educational insititutions: they are emptying schools of education; “defertilization” of schools; “deintellectualization” of the teacher profession; pauperization, fragmentation and emptying the contents teacher education programs and recontextualization of the nexus theory-practice. The reforms after the Directives and Bases of Education - Law No. 9394/1996, with respect to the education of teachers, are analyzed in relation to the process of productive restructuring. We analyze the relation between theory and practice, given the National Curriculum Guidelines for the Education Course (DCNCP, 2006), focusing on the Course of Pedagogy for the Faculty of Philosophy and Science, at the Paulista State University, Campus of Marilia. This course offers an extensive practical training, but restricted as to the academic content offered, limiting the possibilities of an in-depth training for the future teachers. Discussing these relations, this article presents the assessment of the students in the course and concludes offering perspectives for a humanizing and critical training.

A formação do Professor de Línguas de uma Perspectiva Sociocultural

With the development of cognition studies and the awareness that teachers’ previous experiences, knowledge acquired in language teacher education programs and classroom experiences in different contexts shape the ways teachers think and construct their teaching practices, teacher education programs start to understand, from a sociocultural perspective, teachers’ learning as a dialogic process of knowledge co-construction, which is situated and emerges from practices and sociocultural contexts. Considering the relevance of this new perception, this article aims at presenting such theoretical perspective as well as its contributions to language teacher education research and teaching.