O potencial da experimentação no desenvolvimento de habilidades cognitivas e na qualificação do ensino sobre microrganismos na educação básica

Abstract

In a society, where scientific research is advancing rapidly, it is imminent to develop different cognitive skills to citizen to understand and use the available knowledge. With Microbiology is no different, scientific discoveries have imposed on society to make choices and express opinions, for which, they need to be prepared. The problem is that, because Microbiology is an abstract science, its formal teaching has been a challenge for some teachers. As a consequence, many students have difficulties in interpreting daily phenomena related to microbiology. In this context, the main objective of this work was to contribute to the scientific literacy about microorganisms, based on the understanding of the role of experimental classes as a strategy for teaching in Elementary School. In order to do this, we investigate how the teacher’s difficulties in class take place, we carried out a continuous training course and verified their influence on the qualification of the pedagogical practice, and also analyzed the potential of the experimental classes for students' learning about microbiology. This study was characterized as social education research, which did not have a unique methodology, but rather, different methodological paths constructed throughout the process. The conclusions and discussions emerged from qualitative and quantitative analyzes of the results. With these analyzes found that although most teachers agree with the importance of practical classes, they don't feel prepared to perform experimental practical classes of microbiology, the main difficulties reported was the lack of material, knowledge, time, laboratory and support pedagogical. The continuous training course was an effective alternative to minimize the difficulties of teachers with the experimentation strategy and with the disciplinary knowledge about microorganisms. It was also realized that teachers need to improve their knowledge to contextualize and problematize the classroom contents causing incomplete or incompatible conceptions of the students' with the scientific knowledge about the microbial world. However, although the methodology of this work is not the only one capable of qualifying the teaching of microbiology in Elementary School, it has great potential to associate the learning of contents on microorganisms with the development of skills that allow the student Interpret and evaluate situations different from those learned in the classroom.