Emerging representations in the teaching discourse from the history of chemistry in teaching

Abstract

This article presents an interpretative-comprehensive analysis of the professional reflections of practicing chemistry teachers, within the framework of their own professional development, with the aim of identifying and characterizing how, from a reflective, intentional, and permanent process on school chemistry, based on the History of Chemistry, it is possible to contribute to the metatheoretical training of teachers and to the improvement of professional practice in classroom. The research design is of a flexible descriptive type and was carried out with teachers in the city of Concepción (Chile). The results show the gradual and progressive consolidation of a new way of understanding and disseminating school chemistry, based on new conceptualisations of the relationship between the history and nature of science, and its inclusion in the secondary school chemistry class as a guiding device for their professional discourse and the resignification of the epistemological dimension of this discourse in the theoretical representations of the teachers.