Teacher Education for Scientific Inquiry Teaching: Learning in a Professional Development Course that was part of the Implementation of a New Curriculum
The challenges of initial and in-service teacher education for teaching science have been broadly acknowledged, as well as the importance of promoting teacher learning for supporting professionalism and agency. The goal of this study is to contribute to understanding how elementary and middle school teachers learn about Scientific Inquiry Teaching in the context of in-service teacher education courses. In particular, we investigated: How a teacher educator and a class of teachers constructed discursively aspects of Scientific Inquiry in a course related to the implementation of a Science curriculum based in the perspective of Scientific Literacy and Scientific Inquiry?
The course, which had a total of 24 hours, was offered by the county department of education, and it was based on the National Curriculum (Base Nacional de Curricular Comum, BNCC). The activities involved the introduction to central aspects of the county curriculum. TParticipants were: i) 31 public school teachers who worked in elementary and/or middle school; and ii) a teacher educator with previous experience in teacher education, and who served as a public school teacher in middle school and in high school chemistry. The main sources of data were participant observation, with records in a field notes, and audio and video records, as well as artifacts produced during the course and/or related to the implementation. Transcriptions were made at the macroscopic levels with the construction of lessons tables and event maps. Based on these representations, four events were selected, involving the active participation of two teachers. The contrast between events, considering modes of interaction between participants, contributed to answering research questions. The microscopic analyses involved elaborating word-by-word transcripts of discursive interactions. The results evidenced that the participation of teachers in dialogic interactions make it possible the emergence of diverse perspectives and it supported the reflection about EnCI, making visible the importance of the teacher educator's mediation. The study has the potential to contribute to research on continuing and initial teacher education, as well as reflections on the pedagogical practice of trainers. Plans for future analysis are discussed.