Formação continuada para professores de biologia: avanços e desafios de um curso EaD

Abstract

One of the aims of education is the academic improvement and the search for professional development. Some years after graduation, most of the teachers face the necessity of improvement in methodologies and in each curricular components. In this sense, the in-service education courses could help by supplying part of this deficiency, helping in the renewal about pedagogical practices taking them to restructure and deepen the knowledge developed during graduation. The present master dissertation focuses on developing and evaluating distance learning (EaD) for Biology teachers. The research was divided into three steps. In the first one (E1), we created and sent a virtual investigative questionnaire to Biology teachers asking them what are the areas of Biology they needed more courses and what would be the best way to apply the course. The thematic chosen by the teachers was genetics and the way was by distance learning. Facing the results from the step E1 we created and executed the first edition of a distance learning course for Biology teachers with the thematic Genetics nowadays (E2). In the third step, (E3), we did the restructuring and execution of a second edition of the course. Both editions used the Moodle (an online teaching and learning environment), with weekly activities, always looking for using different virtual tools in each new proposal. As results, we verified that the distance learning courses for Biology teachers is a benefit in the process of in-service education, once this modality helps in the issues of time flexibility, teachers routine organization and avoids commuting. Furthermore, according to the evaluation of the teachers who took the courses, it is possible to see a lack and a wish of participating in more courses with learning purposes, what takes the data obtained in this work to serve as a basis for the creation of new permanent education courses. It is essential that the teacher analyses critically how to use, improve and/or develop didactic materials adapted to their own reality, so that the innovation can be effectively incorporated to the teaching routine.