Teacher training for inclusive education: development of plant physiology teaching activities for visually impaired students

• Grant number: 18/21169-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: March 01, 2019
• End date: October 31, 2020
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Education - Specific topics in Education
• Principal Investigator: Estéfano Vizconde Veraszto
• Grantee: Nathália Elisa Ferreira Vicente
• Host Institution: Centro de Ciências Agrárias (CCA). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). Araras , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Considering an Inclusive Education perspective for students with visual impairment, it is necessary that there be specific teaching activities that will help these students in their full school development, exploring other senses and, in the last case, expanding images and objects that reduce the visual effort for students with low vision. However, in the case of inclusion, the material should also be used for moonblind students. Frequently, this does not occur in the school context, where science education, in general, has been based on visual principles, perpetuating exclusionary practices. As the inclusive educational context is undergoing transformations, challenges are being encountered, among them the training of teachers. Based on these principles, the objective of this work is to develop teaching activities of plant physiology for visually impaired students, as a strategy for teacher training, starting from the legal theoretical contribution to the teaching practice, aiming at inclusion. To do so, the project plans to carry out a teacher training course (initial and continued), seeking a partnership for the production of material and didactic content for the teaching of Plant Physiology. The analysis of this material will be supported by qualitative assumptions, and the developed material will adopt criteria of the multisensory theory applied to the teaching of sciences for students with visual impairment. Thus, it is expected that both teachers working in regular education and those in the process of training will overcome pre-established conceptions that disability is a limiting and impeding factor in the teaching-learning process.