Cosmoeducação: uma abordagem transdisciplinar no ensino de astronomia

This work proposes a transdisciplinary approach that integrates transpersonal psychology exercises with astronomy teaching, seeking to allow one to reintegrate the sky in his/her daily life, expand his/her environmental awareness and eventually experiment the unity between human and cosmos. This proposal intends to collaborate with the supplying of education, which lacks initiatives of this kind, with the promotion of an integration of the scientific knowledge with the human experience that transcends the materialistic and fragmentary objectives of the current educational system. As a result of that lack, the teachers formation is also poor as for an integral and transdisciplinary approach. Besides, we also approached in this research the necessity to propose alternatives so that the educators may work in a more assertive way with the environmental and anthropological crisis in which we are living. Our working hypothesis is that the contents of astronomy, when they are dealt in a holisticanthropological focus and are related with transpersonal psychology practices, can come to be an efficient cultural-academic vehicle, capable of propitiating an expansion of consciousness and changes in the way one conceives the world. Such changes are necessary so that a more solidary, fair and ecologically balanced life may come to exist and prevail in the planet. Part of the collection of data was done through the ethnographic method, once an anthropological interpretation is inextricably associated with this kind of educational intervention, which will naturally include ethno-visions of the universe as well as specific cultural elements. In the beginning the scope of this research was a group of students attending the Astronomy assignment in an undergraduate Geography course (UFRN), in which we accomplished participant observation, half-open interviews and the first experimental practices mentioned. After the evaluation of the first data collected from that initial group, we elaborated an academic extension course, Laboratory in Cosmoeducation, and we offered it to teachers of the 1st and 2nd cycles of the fundamental level of the Alceu Amoroso Lima State School, located in the North Zone of Natal. We prized self-experimentation in that course, so that the teachers could enrich their repertoire of personal experiences, stimulating meditative reflections and eventual changes in the ways of conceiving the world and in their pedagogical practice. The transdisciplinary attitude permeated all our educational action, because this approach transcends the boundaries of disciplines, seeking essentially the integral development of the human being. The process has made us realize that the practice of looking at the sky , as a way of reintegrating it into daily life, provokes a process of expansion of the consciousness and of reintegration of the self in a wider level of environmental interrelation. According to the results, the occurrence of conceptual and existential changes of the world vision of the participant teachers was evident, reassuring ourselves of the idea that the interface between astronomy teaching and the practices of transpersonal psychology can contribute to the recovery of a holistic relationship between the human being and the cosmos and to inspire the arising of a more wide-ranging ethics, based on universal, impartial and sustainable values

Investigação histórica na formação de professores de matemática: um estudo centrado no conceito de função

In this study we analyzed the development of a teaching experience, involving students with a bachelor s degree in mathematics from UFRN, based on the history of mathematics and mathematical investigations with the aim of contributing to the improvement of the teaching-learning of mathematics. The historical investigation tasks were planned and applied in the classroom, focusing on functional thought. The results obtained during the experience were described and evaluated based on authors who support the assumption of investigation and history as an alternative to the learning of mathematics. We emphasize that the material of analysis consisted of a work diary, audio recordings, questionnaires with testimony of the students involved, and, in addition, the assessment of the teacher of that subject. With regard to the mathematical content, the study was restricted to the concept of function, forms of representation and notation. It was evident that students showed great improvement with regard to the necessary formalization of the mathematical contents which were focused on, and to the active involvement of the students at different stages of the study. We can affirm that the completed study certainly represents significant contributions to an approach in the teaching-learning of functional thought

Opiniões de professores do ensino médio: refletindo sobre os projetos escolares e a interdisciplinaridade

Official documents indicate to a curriculum organization that promotes the dialogue in different areas of knowledge. Among the proposals strategies are the "School Projects". This research appears from the staff need evidenced in the development of practice of the researcher in recent years as Pedagogical Advisor in high school. The comments made in the daily work on the kinds of projects and how they were developed in the school, generated concerns. They aroused the interest in further the discussion, aiming to reflect with teachers about the implementation of a pedagogic action on the use of educational projects in the classroom, as a didactic strategy which promotes the learning of students. In this sense, it seeks to develop studies and discussions by the application of questionnaires and the holding of a workshop with teachers in the area of Science of Nature and Mathematics in private high school institutions from Natal, searching opinions of them as the preparation and development of school projects. As general purpose, it aims to contribute with elements to the reflection of the teachers on the use of this strategy of education. For both, we propose: the knowledge of ideas/opinions of teachers on planning, development and evaluation of projects, both disciplinary and interdisciplinary, identifying the main difficulties of these teachers about the work with projects at school; reviewing projects developed at school after the press conference in a meeting with teachers, incorporating the identified aspects as weak points. In the course of the methodology research, questionnaires were used with open and closed questions for the lifting of preliminary ideas for teachers in order to subsidize the planning of a developed meeting later in the school itself on the subject in question. 10 teachers took part of the first step and 17 in the second one (pressconference). In the third stage, an individual interview was carried out and analysis of projects already developed. It is observed that, as the main difficulty for the development of projects in school, pointed to the time factor in the planning team, followed by excessive working hours for teachers that, generally, also work in other schools. Some teachers say they do not develop projects for not having knowledge of how to develop school projects, neither disciplinary, nor interdisciplinary

A utilização de espaços de educação não formal por professores de biologia de Natal-RN

La práctica educativa en espacios no formales es un recurso didáctico catalizador de motivación e interese, tanto para alumnos como para los profesores. El crecimiento de los espacios no formales coincide con los cambios recientes en el mundo en los campos sociales, políticos, económicos y culturales. Como una de las consecuencias de esos cambios, tenemos el crecimiento de otras instancias difusoras de conocimientos rompiendo, así, la hegemonía de la escuela. De esa forma, en este trabajo busqué investigar la frecuencia y las formas de utilización de los espacios de educación no formal por profesores de biología, de la enseñanza media, de la Ciudad de Natal (RN). Procuré también, identificar cuales son los espacios de educación no-formal que son utilizados; describir los recursos y las acciones desarrolladas en eses espacios; identificar la existencia o no de interese y la importancia que atribuyen a los espacios para la enseñanza de biología, además de divulgar los espacios utilizados como recursos didácticos. Para alcanzar estos objetivos fueron hechas observaciones de los espacios, aplicados cuestionarios y realizadas entrevistas con los profesores que realizan actividades junto a tales instituciones. Para el análisis de los datos se utilizó tanto el abordaje cuantitativo como cualitativa. Nos basamos en referenciales teóricos de autores que buscan establecer las relaciones entre diferentes modalidades de educación para mejor comprender lo que es la educación no-formal y su trayectoria histórica. Constaté que los profesores utilizan los espacios de educación no-formales, aun la cantidad de visitas al año sea reducida, en virtud de varias dificultades por ellos apuntadas, tales como el transporte, la falta de recursos financieros y de apoyo para viabilizar la visita, entre otros. Verifiqué también que los profesores demostraron un alto interese por los espacios no-formales y apuntaron como principales justificativas para considerarlos importantes para la enseñanza de la biología la posibilidad de establecer conexiones entre la teoría y la practica, además de la complementariedad

A prática interdisciplinar como estratégia de aprendizagem na formação continuada: uma experiência com professores da área das ciências da natureza

The school is a privileged locus of pedagogical reflection and, therefore, can and must be the best place for the process of continuing graduation for teachers. This process can be very productive if executed with an interdisciplinary group, once interdisciplinarity enables sharing different disciplines and also different personal stories. This study aimed to build a continuing graduation opportunity with an interdisciplinary group of teachers to Natural Sciences area, in a private school in the city of Natal - RN. This opportunity was build using as a tool the elaboration of interdisciplinary class called dialog-lesson. The methodology was in accordance with the principles of the qualitative approach of search-action, and the methodological way consisted of three stages that sought to meet the specific objectives: the definition of multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity, which had teachers in the Natural Sciences area; present a proposal that emerged from group discussions, identifying some elements of the limits and possibilities of the activity developed by the group of teachers from the Natural Sciences area. The results showed a studies lack on the subject by teachers and induced the reading and studing the Education legal documents (LDB, PCNEM and OCNEM). The planning of lessons led to the need for meetings that established the process of continuing graduation in exercising at the school. The interdisciplinary practice enable many gains, for example, the cohesion of the teachers, the perception need to constantly update and use of teaching units for planning. But it was also possible to observe limits, such as the difficulty of working with large classes and the danger of the content become superficial. The experience has shown that continuing graduation at school is possible and can be beneficial the use of interdisciplinary groups for this purpose, because it allows the exchange of experiences and pratice reflection of teaching in the itself exercise of this teaching

A estratégia didática de resolução de problemas na formação de professores de química

In this work it is presented a research developed in the initial training of teachers of the chemistry graduation course at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN). The intervention was realized in two classes in the context of a discipline in the curricular structure with nineteen undergraduate students of chemistry. The study utilizes characteristics of the qualitative approach and uses observation, questionnaires, interviews and examination papers. The experiment involved a sequence of activities fundamented on the Problem Solving (PS) teaching strategy to approach chemical concepts. The proposal was planned and organized according to the theoretical presupposition of the work developed by the authors of the Science Education in PS, of teaching experience and from the initial hypotheses of the research. The goal was that the future teachers could experience the strategy and advance to the new meanings. The themes addressed in the activities were the difference between exercises and problems, exercises turning into problems, the steps of problem solving and some implications of the teaching strategy for the work of the teacher. The results showed evidence that through a process of collective reflection, and from the difficulties experienced in the strategy practice, the undergraduates are introduced to new perspectives of reflection and action of teaching practice, and understanding some benefits of innovative proposals for the teaching of chemistry. It also showed that, although this theme is approached, in some moments of the graduation, the future teachers don‟t know when or how to realize activities in this perspective. From the aspects that rose in research we highlighted the difficulties in the problem solving steps, the use of the strategy in school and the knowledge and skills of the teacher for planning activities in Problem Solving

Atividades experimentais no ensino de biologia em escolas públicas do estado do Rio Grande do Norte, Brasil: caracterização geral e concepção de professores

Recent research has revealed that the majority of Biology teachers believe the practice of experimental activities as a didactical means would be the solution for the improvement of the Biology teaching-learning process. There are, however, studies which signal the lack of efficiency in such practice lessons as far as building scientific knowledge is concerned. It is also said that despite the enthusiasm on the teachers‟ part, such classes are rarely taught in high school. Several studies point pedagogical difficulties as well as nonexistence of a minimal infrastructure needed in laboratories as cause of low frequency in experimental activities. The poor teacher performance in terms of planning and development of classes; the large number of students per class; lack of financial stimulus for teachers are other reasons to be taken into account among others, in which can also be included difficulties of epistemological nature. That means an unfavorable eye of the teacher towards experimental activities. Our study aimed to clarify if such scenario is generalized in high schools throughout the state of Rio Grande do Norte Brazil. During our investigation a sample of twenty teaching institutions were used. They were divided in two groups: in the first group, five IFRN- Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia do Rio Grande do Norte schools. Two of those in Natal, and the other three from the country side. The second group is represented by fifteen state schools belonging to the Natal metropolitan area. The objectives of the research were to label schools concerning laboratory facilities; to identify difficulties pointed by teachers when performing experiment classes, and to become familiar with the conceptions of the teachers in regarding biology experiment classes. To perform such task, a questionnaire was used as instrument of data collecting. It contained multiple choice, essay questions and a semi-structured interview with the assistance of a voice recorder. The data analysis and the in loco observation allowed the conclusion that the federal schools do present better facilities for the practice of experimental activities when compared to state schools. Another aspect pointed is the fact that teachers of federal schools have more time available for planning the experiments; they are also better paid and are given access a career development, which leads to better salaries. All those advantages however, do not show a significantly higher frequency regarding the development of experiments when compared to state school teachers. Both teachers of federal and state schools pointed infra-structure problems such as the availability of reactants, equipments and consumption supplies as main obstacle to the practice of experiments in biology classes. Such fact leads us to conclude that maybe there are other problems not covered by the questionnaire such as poor ability to plan and execute experimental activities. As far as conceptions about experimental activities, it was verified in the majority of the interviewees a inductive-empiric point of view of science possibly inherited during their academic formation and such point of view reflected on the way they plan and execute experiments with students

Formação continuada de professores que ensinam matemática: o papel do ábaco na ressignificação da prática pedagógica

The present dissertation performs a study about abacus part on the continuous education of Elementary School s Mathematic teachers on what concerns the basic operations of addition and subtraction with (re)unification by using the manipulative and/or informatical abacus. Therefore, the research intends to answer the following question: How does a teacher reframe the pedagogical practice while teaching the Decimal Numeral System and the conventional operations of addition and subtraction with (re)unification through manipulative and informatical abacus? In order to do so, we rely ourselves on the Guy Brousseau s Theory of Didactic Situations (TDS) from 1996 that affirms the necessity to trace a way in accordance with the teaching situations that lead the student s learning; and on the work of Pierre Lévy (1993), in which the poles of communication oral, written and virtual create three ways of communication through which the learning process happens. The methodology of this paper was based on the Strategic Research-Action of Franco (2005). The didactic sequence was elaborated in accordance with TDS and used the manipulative and informatical abacus as didactic resource. With the application of the didactic sequence, it was verified that the continued formation of Elementary School s teachers concerning the operations of addition and subtraction on the initial years/levels is pertinent once it has been observed some difficulties of the teachers concerning this mathematical subject. Besides, the analysis of the didactic sequence has allowed one to realize that teachers had some difficulties concerning the numeric representation with order zero, the resolution of operations of addition and subtraction using the manipulative and informatical abacus and the realization of (re)unification on the subtraction with meaning. These observations has been discussed with the teachers and, after that, it has been done some didactic-methodological routings of the operations of addition and subtraction with re(unification) that contributes with the teaching and learning process.

Uma sequencia didática para o ensino da resolução da equação do 2. grau : adequação para o uso com professores

The present study aims to check whether the use of activities mediated by the History of Mathematics can contribute to improve the understanding of resolution the 2nd degree equation for teachers and undergraduates that reproduce methods of solving such equations, uncritically, without domain of the justifications for their actions. For this, we adapted a didactic sequence with activities that aims to cause a rediscovery of resolutive formula of 2nd degree equation through the method known as cut and paste. Finally, we presented the activity module containing the didactic sequence used during the study, as suggestion for use in the classroom, by the math teacher

As influências da psicanálise na educação brasileira no início do século XX

O presente artigo tem por objetivo discutir, a partir de um vértice histórico, a relação entre educação e psicanálise no Brasil. Partindo de um estudo qualitativo, fundamentado na análise bibliográfica relativa à produção psicanalítica dedicada à educação produzida no país nas primeiras décadas do século XX, são discutidas as contribuições da psicanálise na transformação das práticas educacionais. Os resultados indicam que a psicanálise esteve presente na educação de duas formas: inicialmente, pela divulgação de informações teóricas relativas aos conceitos psicanalíticos e às características do desenvolvimento emocional da criança, por intermédio de livros e cursos destinados a educadores, e, posteriormente, através da criação de uma prática de assistência ao escolar com problemas de aprendizagem ou comportamento, desenvolvida em clínicas de orientação infantil, que consistia na avaliação da criança e na orientação de pais e professores. Conclui-se que a psicanálise, enquanto fundamento teórico e prático, forneceu elementos que contribuíram para a sustentação dos pressupostos filosóficos da Escola Nova, que surgiu, a partir da década de 1920, como alternativa ao ensino tradicional.

Ensino por investigação: contribuições de um curso de formação continuada para a prática de professores de ciências naturais e biologia

Normally initial teacher training has not been sufficient to provide all the tools for an updated and efficient teaching practice. It is presented here one of the ways of working the completion of the initial training through a course of continuing education. This course is based on inquiry teaching which is considered an important teaching strategy for science education. This kind of teaching enables improvement of students reasoning and cognitive skills, the cooperation among them, the understanding of the nature of scientific work, and the motivation to think about the relationship between science, technology, society and environment. For this dissertation a course of continuing education based on this approach was followed in order to evaluate which contributions it can bring to the teaching practice. The course was followed based on three stages: on the first there was a questionnaire and an informal interview; next it happened through participant observation with audio and visual aid; the third stage happened through semi structured interview. The collected information was analyzed based on Content Analysis. An inquiry teaching pedagogical material was produced for the course including some examples and applications of this approach. The aim of the material is that it can be a support for the teachers after de course. The results allowed seeing that the course was very useful, different from the traditional and the teachers that put the approach to use found it to be very positive. Thus it can be said that some of the teachers who participated will try again to apply it, try to contextualize more the teaching situations with the students day to day life, as well make them more active and critic. We can also gather from the study, that the inquiry teaching is a very different tool from what the teacher was taught and is accustomed to use and the theoretical comprehension, acceptance and practice change is a complicated process and demands time

Representações de professores de língua inglesa de Natal-RN: um estudo sistêmico-funcional

Teaching and learning representations have been more and more investigated in the Brazilian applied linguistics field, as it allows the understanding of the teachers representations and how they conceive the learning process. This practice facilitates the planning of actions to improve the educational system. This study aims at identifying, interpreting and discussing some representations related to the identity and professional view of English as a foreign language teachers in different school contexts of Natal-RN. The theoretical and methodological foundation for this research is Halliday s Systemic- Functional Linguistics (1994; HALLIDAY; MATHIESSEN, 2004; EGGINS, 1994, among others). Our goal was to reveal the teachers representations embedded in their language, mainly through the ideational metafunction, as language is the tool we use to express ourselves about the external world (events, qualities, things, etc) and the internal world (thoughts, beliefs, feelings, etc). The research corpus is made of 21 teacher narratives, generated from a questionnaire sent to the teachers, who were divided in two groups: Group 1 (public schools teachers) and Group 2 (private schools and English course teachers). Most of the participants seemed to be satisfied with their professional choice. Many of them see the job as a challenge and an opportunity to transmit knowledge. All of them affirmed that the English teacher is a professional, for different reasons; however, the low professional appreciation was a recurrent aspect among the studied narratives. When asked about where they work, the private school teachers seemed to be more satisfied with the teaching-learning process than the ones from the public schools. We believe that the data analyzed in this study is important to show how some English teachers from Natal-RN see their profession. The results might be used in continuing education courses as food-for-thought in group discussions, as it is extremely important to emphasize and stimulate this practice

Crenças de professores do município de Caicó RN sobre o ensino de gramática nos anos iniciais do nível fundamental

Este trabalho tem como objetivo analisar as crenças de professores das séries iniciais do nível fundamental da cidade de Caicó-RN sobre o ensino de gramática. A partir da aplicação de um questionário, analisam-se as crenças manifestadas no discurso de 20 docentes da rede municipal de ensino do referido município. As questões formuladas visaram investigar as crenças dos informantes sobre o que é ensinar gramática e que dificuldades encontram para realizar o ensino dos conteúdos gramaticais, considerando aspectos teóricos e práticos, entre eles: a construção da concepção sobre ensino de gramática, a participação em projetos de formação continuada na especificidade de ensino de língua, a influência dessa formação sobre o seu fazer pedagógico, e a realização do planejamento de ensino de conteúdos gramaticais. Para fundamentar a reflexão, buscou-se apoio em autores como Abrahão; Barcelos (2006); Antunes (2009; 2007); Neves (2004a; 2004b; 2007; 2010) Silva (2004; 2007), Travaglia (2001; 2004); entre outros, a partir dos quais são abordados os conceitos de língua, linguagem e gramática, relacionando-os ao desenvolvimento da competência linguística/comunicativa no ensino de língua portuguesa. Os dados analisados revelam que a influência das crenças sobre o ensino de gramática no fazer pedagógico do professor se relaciona com sua formação acadêmica, desde a escolha do referencial teórico adotado pelos professores das disciplinas relacionadas ao tema até a metodologia utilizada para trabalhar os conteúdos, considerando as experiências pessoais concretizadas ao longo de sua vida. Além disso, percebeu-se que existe uma forte convergência entre crenças, conhecimentos e experiências práticas. O trabalho conclui-se com uma reflexão sobre as implicações que uma postura reflexiva pode ter no atual panorama de ensino de língua, em geral, e de gramática, em particular.

O ensino de língua inglesa em um instituto federal : uma análise das recomendações documentais e da perspetiva dos professores

This work aims to understand the teaching of English at the Federal Institute of considering the recommendations of official and technical documents for the integrated secondary school and the perspective of the English teachers settled in one of the campuses of the Institute. It is also an objective of this research to infer as to what extent the perspective of teachers is articulated to the documental recommendations. For this purpose, several official and technical documents (LÜDKE; ANDRÉ, 1986), such as the PCNEMs (BRAZIL, 2000), the OCNEMs (BRAZIL, 2006) and the Political-Pedagogical Project of the Institute (IFRN, in press) were gathered, and a questionnaire was submitted to six teachers of English from one of the campuses of the institution. The theoretical references of the research include, among others, Bakhtin (1997; 1999), Widdowson (1991), Almeida Filho (2011; 2004), Celani (1988; 2009), Hutchinson and Waters (1987) and Dudley-Evans and St. John (1998). The results show that the teaching of English according to the documents predicts the instrumental use of the foreign language, but suggests the development of competences and skills as contextualized social practices, aimed at the education of the student as a professional-citizen. The perspective of teachers, in turn, points to a concern that the teaching of English serves as a tool for improving student life through the instrumental use of language as a means of accessing information and professional training. This finding reveals that the articulation between the documental recommendations and perspective of teachers does not go beyond what refers to the instrumental language teaching, since teachers do not show, when reporting their practices, the teaching of language as social practice, as mentioned in the legal texts

Práticas de letramento digital de professores em formação: demandas, saberes e impactos

Over the last decades, the digital inclusion public policies have significantly invested in the purchase of hardwares and softwares in order to offer technology to the Brazilian public teaching institutions, specifically computers and broadband Internet. However, the teachers education to handle these artefacts is put away, even though there is some demand from the information society. With that, this dissertation chooses as an object of study the digital literacy practices performed by 38 (thirty-eight) teachers in initial and continuous education by means of the extension course Literacies and technologies: portuguese language teaching and cyberculture demands. In this direction, we aim at investigating the digital literacy practices of developing teachers in three specific moments: before, while and after this extension action with the intent to (i) delineate the digital literacy practices performed by the collaborators before the formative action; (ii) to narrate the literacy events made possible by the extension course; (iii) to investigate the contributions of the education course to the collaborators teaching practice. We sought theoretical contributions in the literacy studies (BAYNHAM, 1995; KLEIMAN, 1995; HAMILTON; BARTON; IVANIC, 2000), specifically when it comes to digital literacy (COPE, KALANTZIS, 2000; BUZATO, 2001, 2007, 2009; SNYDER, 2002, 2008; LANKSHEAR & KNOBEL, 2002, 2008) and teacher education (PERRENOUD, 2000; SILVA, 2001). Methodologically, this virtual ethnography study (KOZINETS, 1997; HINE, 2000) is inserted into the field of Applied Linguistics and adopts a quali-quantitative research approach (NUNAN, 1992; DÖRNYEI, 2006). The data analysis permitted to evidentiate that (i) before the course, the digital literacy practices focused on the personal and academic dimensions of their realities at the expense of the professional dimension; (ii) during the extension action, the teachers collaboratively took part in the hybrid study sessions, which had a pedagogical focus on the use of ICTs, accomplishing the use of digital literacy practices - unknown before that; (iii) after the course, the attitude of the collaborator teachers concerning the use of ICTs on their regular professional basis had changed, once those teachers started to effectively make use of them, promoting social visibility to what was produced in the school. We also observed that teachers in initial education acted as more experienced peers in collaborative learning process, offering support scaffolding (VYGOTSKY, 1978; BRUNER, 1985) to teachers in continuous education. This occurred because of the undergraduates actualize digital literacy practices were more sophisticated, besides the fact being integrate generation Y (PRENSKY, 2001)