Desenvolvimento do conhecimento de professores sobre natureza da Ciência: contribuições da história da Ciência

Abstract

Curricula from several countries and many researchers have advocated the inclusion of discussions concerning nature of science (NoS) in science teaching, since this may support the presentation of a more authentic science to students. Some of these authors claim that, from history of science, it is possible to focus the building of scientific knowledge by both discussing its cultural and social aspects, its tentative nature, and showing that mistakes can possible to focus the building of scientific knowledge by both discussing its cultural and social aspects, its tentative nature, and showing that mistakes can occur in science. This would allow students to reflect and to make decisions concerning socio-scientific issues. However, studieshave shown that teachers do not have proper views of NoS. It seems one of the origins of the problem is teachers' lack of interest on education programmes. The importance of NoS to teachers' education motivated us to study the development of pre-service chemistry teachers' content knowledge on NoS from their involvement in activities based on historical controversies. In our study, by taking into account disciplines like Philosophy, History, Sociology, Anthropology, Economics, Psychology, and Cognition, we analysed data collected in weekly meetings of a programme on pre-service teachers' education from a Brazilian public university. We analysed data collected from written questionnaires, videos of the meetings, and other written materials produced by students, including portfolios. The analysis showed that, from their participation in the historical activities, the pre-service teachers developed a comprehensive view of nature of science, since throughout the meetings, they progressively expressed several aspects concerning distinct disciplines that characterise NoS. This was observed from their speech, actins, and reflections. Therefore, we conclude that the activities involving historical controversies contributed to the development of the pre-service teachers' content knowledge on NoS. From our conclusion, we both reaffirm our belief on the importance of the inclusion of activities involving historical controversies in teachers' education as a way to support their learning of several aspects of Nos, and present some contributions to the literature in the area.