Alfabetizar crianças na escola pública: fazeres docentes em discussão

The most recent data of the Brazilian Test (BRAZIL, 2005) and of the SAEB (BRAZIL, 2007) have reaffirmed the serious situation of the Brazilian public school, where great part of the students, after to conclude 4º year of basic education, does not present minimum knowledge of reading and writing. In this picture, the situation of the state of Rio Grande do Norte, whose students had presented, in the last evaluation is particularly difficult, the worse performances of the country, in this area. The data also discloses that the failure pertaining to school, closely tied with the failure in the literacy, not only remains, as takes other aspects. In consequence of this picture, the literacy, even so widely argued in the last few decades, still instigates inquiries, as it is the case of this work. Our study got shaped due to reflections, as much to the theorizations to which we had access, as of the emergent questions of ours pedagogical practice. Through the past three decades, the studies in the area of literacy with the purpose to understand the constituent nature of the process, its aspects and its determinative ones has been intensified. The produced knowledge has contributed for the overcoming of the reductionist form as if it thought/thinks, in some contexts - this process. Such statements impel them to reflect concerning what is happening in the school, limiting or making possible the pertaining to school success. With these concerns, we delimit, as focus of study, the teaching action, having the following stunning question: What to make professors, in the context of the public school, to propitiate or hinder the process of literacy of the children? In this direction, our object of study is to make them professors who can propitiate or hinder the process of literacy of the children, in the context of the public school. The objective work to investigate, from practical of professors the teachers, that to make professors related to the literacy process - they can propitiate or hinder the learning of the written language, for the pupils of the public school, at the beginning of the school process. The work if inscribes in the qualitative boarding of research and if it configures as a case study, with characteristics of Research-Action, inspired by the following principles: authenticity and commitment and systematic restitution. For the retraction of the data, they had been used: half-structuralized interview; participant comment; meeting of studies and reflection; register in daily of field. We define as locus of study, a school of public net and, more specifically, a group of the initial years of school process that integrates the cycle of literacy . Of the five invited teachers, only one demonstrated interest in participating of the work. Its group of first year of the First Cycle of basic education is composed for 34 children, with ages between six the nine years. The data constructed by means of the described procedures, as well as its analysis, make possible to identify, between the many aspects and to make that they compose the pedagogical dynamics in the context of classroom, the following categories to make articulated with the literacy process: 1. To make of practical the relative ones to the planning, understood as To make relative: 1,1 distribution of the time-space/routine; 1.2 to the didactic activities and/or sequences and teaching interventions; 1.3 to the organization/election of the contents; 1.4 to the materials/didactic resources and 1.5 to the evaluation. 2. To make relative to the interaction professor-pupil, systemize in: 2.1 attention to the diversity; 2.2 to the affectivity. These to make, in the form as if materialized in the practical one observed, had been reflected, jointly with the teacher, as constituting parts of obstacles to a perspective of literacy. By means of the sharing of the reflections, anchored in theoretical conceptions concerning the practical one of teach-learning and, more specifically, of literacy, we register indications of new meanings of these to make on the part of the teacher in conducting them as providers of learning of its pupils, first purpose of its teaching performance. This finishing, possible synthesis at this moment is, therefore, point of fond and departure for new studies

Didactical reconstructions for organizing knowledge in physics teacher education

Physics teachers are in a key position to form the attitudes and conceptions of future generations toward science and technology, as well as to educate future generations of scientists. Therefore, good teacher education is one of the key areas of physics departments education program. This dissertation is a contribution to the research-based development of high quality physics teacher education, designed to meet three central challenges of good teaching. The first challenge relates to the organization of physics content knowledge. The second challenge, connected to the first one, is to understand the role of experiments and models in (re)constructing the content knowledge of physics for purposes of teaching. The third challenge is to provide for pre-service physics teachers opportunities and resources for reflecting on or assessing their knowledge and experience about physics and physics education. This dissertation demonstrates how these challenges can be met when the content knowledge of physics, the relevant epistemological aspects of physics and the pedagogical knowledge of teaching and learning physics are combined. The theoretical part of this dissertation is concerned with designing two didactical reconstructions for purposes of physics teacher education: the didactical reconstruction of processes (DRoP) and the didactical reconstruction of structures (DRoS). This part starts with taking into account the required professional competencies of physics teachers, the pedagogical aspects of teaching and learning, and the benefits of the graphical ways of representing knowledge. Then it continues with the conceptual and philosophical analysis of physics, especially with the analysis of experiments and models role in constructing knowledge. This analysis is condensed in the form of the epistemological reconstruction of knowledge justification. Finally, these two parts are combined in the designing and production of the DRoP and DRoS. The DRoP captures the knowledge formation of physical concepts and laws in concise and simplified form while still retaining authenticity from the processes of how concepts have been formed. The DRoS is used for representing the structural knowledge of physics, the connections between physical concepts, quantities and laws, to varying extents. Both DRoP and DRoS are represented in graphical form by means of flow charts consisting of nodes and directed links connecting the nodes. The empirical part discusses two case studies that show how the three challenges are met through the use of DRoP and DRoS and how the outcomes of teaching solutions based on them are evaluated. The research approach is qualitative; it aims at the in-depth evaluation and understanding about the usefulness of the didactical reconstructions. The data, which were collected from the advanced course for prospective physics teachers during 20012006, consisted of DRoP and DRoS flow charts made by students and student interviews. The first case study discusses how student teachers used DRoP flow charts to understand the process of forming knowledge about the law of electromagnetic induction. The second case study discusses how student teachers learned to understand the development of physical quantities as related to the temperature concept by using DRoS flow charts. In both studies, the attention is focused on the use of DRoP and DRoS to organize knowledge and on the role of experiments and models in this organization process. The results show that students understanding about physics knowledge production improved and their knowledge became more organized and coherent. It is shown that the flow charts and the didactical reconstructions behind them had an important role in gaining these positive learning results. On the basis of the results reported here, the designed learning tools have been adopted as a standard part of the teaching solutions used in the physics teacher education courses in the Department of Physics, University of Helsinki.