Experiences concerning the Development of Latin American Science Teachers’ Knowledge of Models and Modelling

Abstract

This paper has three aims: (i) presenting a proposal for continuous professional development which was built from three theoretical backgrounds: a pedagogical reasoning model, a collaborative action-research, and a teachers’ practice aiming at favoring the development of teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) on models and modelling; (ii) showing how such theoretical backgrounds were integrated in order to support the actions in the projects; and (iii) discussing their role in the development of teachers’ PCK of models and modelling. This proposal was developed from a critical-reflective approach, which main premises were the conception of teachers as learners, and a real collaboration between teachers and experts, i.e., an interaction in which both participants play equally relevant roles and learn from the reciprocal sharing of their experiences. The proposal was developed with two different groups of Science teachers in Brazil and Mexico. The analysis of the results showed a tendency to effective changes in teachers’ practices.