Desenvolvimento profissional docente: contribuições e limites de um processo formativo em um grupo colaborativo de professores de ciências da rede pública de Juiz de Fora (MG)

Abstract

This research seeks to value collaborative processes that consider the complexity of teaching practice and the rapid changes that have taken place in our society have been valued, as well the demands for overcoming teacher isolation. Thus, we aim to analyze the contributions and the limits the science teachers‘ participation in a formative process developed from the construction of a teachers‘ collaborative group. The creation of the group came from us, researchers, who experiment the double role: as researchers and as participants of the group. The group's formative trajectory, although flexible, was carried out in five stages, seeking to: promote an approach to research in science education; foment the construction of collaborative relationships among the participants of the group to contribute to all participants‘ professional development, based on critical reflection and research; propitiate the development of teacher autonomy based on reflection on the curriculum, teaching programs, learning objectives and their multiple relationships with pedagogical practices and the micro and macrostructural conditions of the teaching profession. The present research is inserted in a qualitative perspective, being characterized as collaborative research-action. Data collection took place at all stages of the process, through participant observation which led to the preparation of a field diary, audio and video recordings of the group meetings, interviews, focus group, questionnaire and teachers‘ textual productions. Data analysis was performed through Content Analysis. From the analysis of the group‘s trajectory, it was possible to observe the progressive development of forms of collaboration based on increasing levels of interdependence among teachers, such as: storytelling and scanning for ideas, aid and assistance, sharing e joint work. Besides, it was possible to detect throughout the stages an increasing process of horizontalization of the relationships between the researchers and the other members of the group. Thus, the collaborative character of the group was being built throughout the process, by establishing relationships of trust and collaboration between all participants. From an individual perspective, we can affirm that the formative process provided critical reflection on the practices, as well as a movement of change towards the revision of the role of teacher from transmitter to mediator of the learning process; the approach to education research both in a perspective of critical "consumption" of its results, and in a perspective of knowledge production, given that teachers were simultaneously constituted as actors and authors of their practices, sharing them with the community of teachers and researchers, thus characterizing professional teacher development.