Formação continuada de professores em modelagem matemática na educação matemática: o sentido que os participantes atribuem ao grupo

Abstract

The research on teachers training in Mathematical Modelling has been the focus of ongoing discussions in the mathematics teaching community. Although the initiatives to research this theme have significantly expanded, we did not find any one dedicated to the study of teachers as intentional objects in this area. In view of this gap and with the purpose of contributing tothe researchon teachers training in Mathematical Modelling, we undertook to participate as trainers and trainees in a mixed training model, similar to that established by C.M. Garcia. This model is expected to be continuous and constitutes a sub-region of inquiry in this research. Walking, therefore, on the ground of such training, the question that has conducted this study was: How dothe teachers participating in the Continuing Education in Mathematical Modelling in Mathematics Education see their training group?It must be clear that this study was carried out from a phenomenological perspective, which allowed us to look at the group attentive tothe multiple modes of manifestation of the phenomenon. To this end, we observed the teachers spontaneous speeches and demonstrations during the fourteen education meetings that took place from November 2015 to June 2016. The collection of materials, audios and written records was made so that all these meetings could be transcribed and analyzed. Such analysis allowed the production of research data and was carried out with the aid of the qualitative analysis software Atlas.ti. We first established the units of meaning that converged to four categories, namely: 1) the challenges that emerge from group work; 2) the role of teachers trainers and how teachers in training see their trainers; 3) teachers feelings and characteristics of their group work, and 4) the group as a locus of reflection on theory and practice with or withoutmodelling. These, in turn, were considered in a phenomenological hermeneutic interpretation effort and revealed, among other things, that placingBasic Education teachers in a context of continuing education in which they feel welcomed and belonging to a collective (a group in which they can,relying on the selfless support of fellow trainees and trainers, discuss and reflect about their own pedagogical practices and the challenges that emerge when they try to change them by adopting Modelling) can encourage them to break, albeit gradually, with the traditional teaching and adopt Modelling as a feasible practice in theirteaching work.