Pedagogical Knowledge on “Nature of Matter” of Brazilian scholars of a pre-service program

Abstract

Pre-service and in-service teachers’ training has been the focus of several programs developed inBrazil. Among them, the called “Institutional Program of Teaching Training Scholarship” (in Portuguese“Programa Institucional de Bolsa de Iniciação à Docência–pibid”) is really remarkable, whichhas as its main goal improving the academic actions for pre-service teachers training. This study hasthe aim to analyze the transformation of knowledge and beliefs of future chemistry teachers — scholarshipholders of pibid — on the topic “Nature of Matter”, to make it comprehensible to high schoolstudents. That is, documenting and discussing the development of Pedagogical Content Knowledge(pck) of each one of these scholars during the design and application of a didactic unit on the topic.The research was done with four scholars of the Program, students of a chemistry career in a publicBrazilian University. Two elements were considered to show the improvements of the participantspck: an initial interview in which the eight questions of the Content Representation of Loughranet al. (2004) were posed, and afterwards the Didactic Unit produced and applied to high school students.Main results show the appropriation for students of enough knowledge for the adequate performancein the classroom, it stimulated by the actions pibid contemplates.