Chemistry teachers facing a reflective process: Science, Technology, Society and Environment relationships and its implication on teaching

• Grant number: 17/24477-1
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: March 01, 2018
• End date: August 31, 2020
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Chemistry
• Principal Investigator: Maria Eunice Ribeiro Marcondes
• Grantee: Maria Eunice Ribeiro Marcondes
• Host Institution: Instituto de Química (IQ). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated researchers: Erivanildo Lopes da Silva ; Fabio Luiz de Souza ; João Batista dos Santos Junior

Abstract

The research questions that guide this Project were built on the following factors. We took into account some findings our research group reached on conceptions and practices of context-based teaching hold by chemistry secondary teachers. These teachers showed poor comprehension of the concepts involved and tended to reduce context-based teaching practices to a collection of examples of daily life facts related to chemistry concepts. We also considered the difficulties experienced by secondary students in explaining everyday situations using chemistry concepts. We take into account the relevance that both education research and official science education documents have been pointing out to teaching-learning processes that integrate science, technology, society and environment issues. In this project, we intend to investigate: what relationships between their STSE's own view related to chemistry content do secondary chemistry teachers establish? What are their beliefs on implementing a STSE' teaching -learning approach to their classrooms? What are the impacts of a formative action based on guided reflection process on their beliefs and teaching practices regarding the STSE approach?The main aims of this research are: getting to know which science and society issues teachers take into account in their lives, getting to understand STSE teachers' beliefs and how they recognize their presence in the chemistry curricula, getting to find out what kind of issues they intend to teach and how they plan their STSE lessons. In addition, we aim to understand how the guided reflection process could contribute to the teachers' analysis of their own STSE view and in planning activities for the teaching -learning activities in their classrooms. The subjects of this research are secondary chemistry teachers from public schools of Sao Paulo State. We will plan periodic meeting between chemistry teachers and the researchers. Classes based on STES approach will be analysed by the group and instructional materials would be prepared according each teacher's needs. (AU)