The mediation as task of the teacher: exploring the conceptions of mediation and the practices of teaching of Elementary and High School

• Grant number: 09/54874-6
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: April 01, 2010
• End date: August 31, 2012
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Education
• Principal Investigator: Maria Guiomar Carneiro Tommasiello
• Grantee: Maria Guiomar Carneiro Tommasiello
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Humanas. Universidade Metodista de Piracicaba (UNIMEP). Instituto Educacional Piracicabano. Piracicaba , SP, Brazil

Abstract

In PISA 2006 (Programme for International Student Assessment), 69% of the Brazilian students were below of the minimum level of proficiency indicated to be considered suitable for living in modern society. Despite being a complex issue, part of the problem is arising out of the pedagogical practices that occur in the classroom. This project deals with the concept of "mediation" which is the interrelationship between the teacher, the students and what to propose to teach, through the language, the action and the various teaching resources available. In its first phase of the project, the aims is to know the different meanings that the word "mediation" assumes the daily lives of the teachers of Sciences of Nature natural of the city of Piracicaba and region to, in sequence, to investigate what teachers plan for their classes, how do they plan, how they minister, the tasks are given to the students and what the students effectively do. The research of qualitative nature and ethnographic will apply questionnaires and interviews with teachers of Sciences of the Nature in the network of public schools of Piracicaba and region. In the second stage of the research development, teachers will have their lessons videotaped and recorded. The conception will be categorized and analyzed and some episodes occurring in the classroom will be investigated based on the assumptions of historical-cultural interpretation of the development, searching for the clues showed by the students in the acts of appropriation of scientific knowledge, characteristic of micro-genetic analysis. The present study aims to contribute to the improvement of teaching and learning of science. (AU)