Following the track of time : an actor-network study of the performance of teaching practices of prospective science teachers.

Abstract

In this text, we present the results of a research that investigated teaching practices performances in a Science Teaching Practices course in a Biology and Science Teacher Education Program at a university located in the state of Minas Gerais-Brazil. Based on references in the studies of Sørensen and Latour, we understand as performances the assemblages between human and non-human actors and the movements resulting from them, which allow reaching a certain result. The research data were collected through participant observation, recorded in a field notebook, audio and video, totaling nine classes, from August to October 2017. The course was located in the sixth semester of the Biology and Science Teaching Program but had the participation of students from other semesters. In our analyses, we identified that the performance of teaching practices was composed by entities with which the undergraduate students interacted in their lesson plans. One of them, the time, was followed in the verbal modulations that led the teachers in formation to move to the past, present and future. In addition, human and non-human actors featured in these class performances aroused a school imagined by them, which restricted their actions. If, on the one hand, this offered possibilities to make the lesson plans more flexible, adapting them to different school realities, on the other hand, it limited, prevented, weakened and/or conferred some anguish to their possibilities of acting in the school context. We highlight the relevance of academic disciplines such as the one investigated, since they represent a special curricular space-time in teacher’s education programs, in which it is possible to better understand the complex and intricate processes of preparation for teaching.