FROM INITIAL QUALIFICATION TO CONTINUED EDUCATION:

RESEARCH IN THE TEACHING PRACTICE

Maria de Fátima Barbosa ABDALLA

SantosCatholicUniversity

Paper presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, University of Geneva, 13-15 September 2006

Introduction

The process we go through allows us constant reflection on our action as educational agents.Each new meeting, in its specific, critical, and creative form, causes the base of knowledge and its function in the collective process for the wide-ranging construction of knowledge to resurface, stimulating and redefining ways to achieve daily life needs, creating links between the teacher-student-school-community and tracing a profile of the importance this Project has as facilitator and indicator of the actual construction of learning the teaching practice (students-teachers from the CEP-University Qualification/Santos, in Abdalla, 2003a).

This paper aims at presenting a few reflections on the importance research has in qualifying students-teachers for the teaching practice.We hope to show how it can contribute to guiding the teaching practice and to creating qualification dynamics capable of reinvigorating, as stated in the epigraph, the actual construction of learning in this practice.

The theme fits into the “Qualification and Profession:understanding the knowledge that is the base for the teaching practice” project.This project hopes to capture the representations students and professors make of the profession.

As the reflections are wide-ranging and complex, the research problematic and its implications on the teaching practice in the different qualification contexts will be dealt with here:from the university to the school.

From this perspective, we first attempted to briefly contextualize the research carried out among interns in a few of the Santos Catholic University (UniSantos) colleges (1st phase, 2002), and with the student-teachers in the University of São Paulo College of Education’s Continued Education Program, in a partnership with the Baixada Santista Metropolitan Region’s municipal school system (2nd phase, 2003-2004).These moments will be the base to continue to the 3rd phase (2005-2006), which is currently being carried out with professors who form these respective teaching production contexts.

In a second instant, we attempted to focus reflection on two issues our research introduced:First on the needs and perspectives of the student-interns and of the student-teachers in understanding the knowledge that is the base for the teaching practice; and second, on the indicators to concretize the practical knowledge acquisition process of the student/teacher who is being qualified.These aspects will give meaning to the role research has in analyzing the teaching practice.

And, finally, a few principles of action and research will be presented; and, although they do not exhaust the entire discussion, they do contribute to illustrating its importance in the teaching practice.

We believe, therefore, that the aspects that are pointed to will serve as a guide to deeper reflection and analysis, allowing the theoretical-methodological criteria that are already being developed in the third stage of the research project to be defined.Additionally, we hope to offer the necessary evidence for it to be possible to understand the importance of incorporating research as a qualification tool to form the actual construction of the teaching practice.

1. The constitutive contexts:the research project’s “findings”

We are aware of the fact that in the current scenario we know very little about the teachers’ practical knowledge.As any other profession, teachers have to have organized knowledge in several dimensions, delimited by professionality criteria.Its function is dimensioned in a sociocultural, institutional and didactic context since, according to Mialaret (1988), the teacher establishes relationships with the society, culture, knowledge, professional practice, and pedagogic knowledge.

We also believe that the process of learning the professional knowledge involves learning complex structures that can only be revealed when an analysis is made of the way practical knowledge is acquired during the qualification process,and that this process is organized, at least, in the form of:concepts; predisposition schemes or networks (León, 1995:342); rules, principles and images (Elbaz, 1981:48); guidance (Rubalcava, 2000:272-273); structure, practice and habitus (Abdalla, 2000: 189-191).

When we think of rebuilding the axes above, we believe that:first, practical knowledge has some type of structure, since the teacher works in a field where power is structured by a space of relationships of force (from the university to the school); second, this knowledge is set-up in its practice:in its experiences and in the knowledge in situations; third, there is a way to be and to be in the profession: a habitus – a principle that generates distinct and distinctive practices, according to Bourdieu (1997: 22). This habitus translates the way the teacher guides and structures his/her practice, mobilizing a capital of knowledge, of knowing-doing and of knowing-being.

The study about the “Qualification and Profession:understanding the knowledge that substantiate the teaching practice” led us to reflect, in a deeper manner, about practical knowledge, i.e., on the knowledge that supports the teaching practice. It also led us to reinforce the idea that it was necessary to analyze the teachers’ line of thought and actions in different professional situations and constitutive contexts.

The theoretical importance of reflecting on what is hidden behind the teaching qualification and production contexts is the first indicator in order to advance in the understanding of how it is possible for educators to learn with their institutions and how the institutions can learn with their teachers.I also believe, based on Bourdieu (1997: 52), that the institution is a space for relationships of force, a field of power, capable of delineating certain practice and representationproperties (id.: 51).

Our supposition is, thus, that there is a process of acquiring practical knowledge that is differentiated according to the qualification contexts:from the university to the school. In this regard, we believe it is important to investigate:a) to what extent the university/school’s pedagogical-administrative organization influences the teacher’s qualification and professional development; b) the fundamental elements to organize practical knowledge; c) how these elements allow professional identity to be built; and d) to what extent the teacher’s professionality can nurture new practices, i.e. a more innovative school culture.

Thus, it was more than necessary to get answers for the following questions:How does the teacher learn how to teach?How does the teacher build his/her qualification model?How do the thought and action of the professor who is being qualified evolve?Which qualification needs are more evident among the teachers?How is the practical knowledge acquisition process characterized?Which aspects of the work context could explain the evolution (or not) of the teaching career?What perspectives do the interns, the participating teachers, and the more experienced teachers have on their professional qualification and development?

These issues indicated (and indicate) the research project’s main problem:the student/professor representations/manifestations on the profession and on the basic knowledge for the teaching practice.The following were the underlying objectives:First, getting to know the needs/perspectives of the interns, participating teachers, and of the more experienced teachers in the qualification contexts; second, surveying indicators that could characterize the practical knowledge acquisition process of the teacher who was being qualified; third, analyzing their representations on the qualifying dimensions of the teacher production contexts (Abdalla, 2004: 165-170).

The research project then inserted itself in a qualitative investigation model, both in the nature of the objectives we hoped to reach, in a perspective of understanding the phenomena, and in data collection, analysis, and interpretation.

This text hopes, based on these premises, to briefly contextualize the two first research phases, highlighting a few aspects that helped us to understand the importance of research as a teacher qualification tool.From this perspective, the objectives are:first, to survey elements to justify the importance of research as a professional learning strategy, both in initial qualification and in continued education actions; second, to understand the extent to which research favors reflection on the practice, on its analysis, and transformation – new habitus, Bourdieu would say (1997, 1998); third, to evaluate research and, particularly, research-action potential/limitations for the educators’ understanding of the knowledge that substantiates their pedagogical practices.

1.1.The role of internships in understanding the knowledge that substantiates the teaching practice (1st Phase of the Research Project)

It is no easy task to build a teaching environment. It presupposes a democratic education, i.e., knowing how to listen, how to challenge with arguments, and how to yield.Of all of these skills, listening is perhaps one of the most difficult ones, as divergences may be valued when there is respect and awareness that qualification also takes place with other people’s contributions.We became aware of this with the research project carried out with that school’s group (UniSantos Education intern , in Abdalla, 2003a: 62).

In order to begin the first phase of the research project, which is related to “the role the internships have in the understanding of the knowledge that substantiates the teaching practice,” we had constant meetings with the selected group, formed by a student (teaching assistant) and two collaborating professors, the coordinators of the Internship Sector and of the Santos Catholic University’s College of Education.The purpose of these meetings was to clarify and follow-up on the entire project.

Our hypothesis was that we should begin with positive experiences to better discuss the theory/practice integration and the role the University and the School currently have in qualifying future teachers.What would contribute to the understanding of the knowledge that substantiate a future teacher’s teaching practice?

The teachers accepted the suggestion and selected the colleges of Letters, Psychology, Geography, and Education, emphasizing that:first, these colleges had courses that were considered as positive by students and professors[1]; second, they had partnerships with the schools, contributing to a good qualification; third, their supervising professors were very committed and engaged with elaborating, executing, and evaluating interdisciplinary projects, attending to the group needs and/or characteristics of the groups they worked with and of each specific investigated medium.

The team proceeded to collecting data based on:first, mapping the interns of the selected Courses, during the past 3 years; second, on identifying projects that were carried out that would allow positive experiences to be searched for in the internships; third, on cataloguing the 55 schools-fields in which the interns would develop their initial qualification; fourth, in accessing a few reports elaborated by students and/or teachers which were articulated with the projects.

We selected nine projects, and their respective reports, involving all mentioned colleges, to follow-up on the interns.After reading and analyzing all of the material, we started elaborating summary charts, identifying:first, the project and its context; second, the executors:Interns, supervising professors, Grade School,1st to 8th grade Elementary, and Middle Education teacher students (including Teacher Education Schools); third, the objectives; fourth, the methodological procedures; fifth, the results, even if partial, but which included:a) the students’ interest in class activities; b) the degree of participation; c) positive aspects insofar as the pedagogical experience was concerned; d) the negative aspects – difficulties found in any stage of the work (preparation, execution, and evaluation); e) the evaluation of the teaching resources and materials used; and f) participant and intern evaluation of the entire research project.

Based on the evaluation of the projects and of the semi-structured interviews carried out with a few interns, we decided to highlight the role the internship has in the understanding of the knowledge that substantiate the teaching practice,particularly the internship that is supported and guided by a research project involving a University/School partnership.

Based on the analysis and interpretation of the data that were collected, it was possible to identify which aspects emphasized the research project’s contribution for the interns to be able to better understand why and how they were learning the teaching profession.To discover, as the intern said in the epigraph, that it is no easy task to build a teaching environment. It presupposes a democratic education, i.e., knowing how to listen, how to challenge with arguments, and how to yield.These were aspects which, among others, the research project elucidated and which made contributions to the teaching practice.This issue was understood even better when we advanced to the 2nd Phase of the Research Project.

1.2.From student to teacher:the first years in the profession (2nd Phase)

We insist, that in the past, we used limit ourselves a lot to the issue of content, always recycling, renovating… but that is not enough.It is the whole…it must be present for one to see the whole…(student-teacher group from the CEP-University Qualification/Santos, in Abdalla, 2003a).

The purpose of the second phase was to follow up on a group of teachers in a Continued Education Program (CEP)/University Qualification offered by the University of São Paulo College of Education’s Support Foundation in partnership with the Baixada Santista Metropolitan Region’s municipal school system.

We investigated the personal and professional trajectory of the Grade School and1st to 4th grade Elementary School teachers.The biggest challenge was to present to the participating group means through which they could respond more competently to the problems they faced, experimenting solutions on the path towards developing guidelines for a more transforming action. This action also involves assimilating new technologies, circulating information, organizing work in groups, and collective learning based on the forms of power, on the degree of participation, and on the specificity of the forms of action (Thiollent, 1996, 1997) of the interested subjects.

Beginning with the project’s specificity, which aims at reflecting on issues that could contribute to professional qualification and to the actual building of learning – a glance on the whole -, as revealed the students-teachers, we decided to bank on research-action as a strategy in this learning.

Why did we begin with this?What were we understanding about as research-action and what would its meaning be for learning the teaching profession?

Reflecting on this real learning helped us understand, from the first phase of the research, that adopting research-action as a methodological realization, would be the best way to learn reality as a whole, to think about it in the fluidity of its process and, particularly, allow the teachers to be actively involved in the reality to be investigated.This mirrored what had happened with the interns when they developed their different research projects with the school community.

The difference, now, is that we intended to conduct this research process and analyze this whole together with the researched subjects.By this, research-action would offer tools to understand the practice and question it, demanding forms of action and conscious decision-making.It was necessary to understand, and have the students-teachers understand the meaning and the importance of research-action.

According to Thiollent (1997:36), research-action supposes a conception of action that “requires, at least, the definition of several elements:an agent (or actor), an object on which the action would be applied on, an event or act, an objective, one or several means, a field or delimited domain.”Among the elements, we highlight as agents (or actors):the tutor and the advising professor (this researcher), who would lead the qualification process of 16 students-researchers who would develop their projects, also defining their research objects, the problem issues, the objectives, and the means to translate them into the different work contexts.

On the other hand, research-action also presupposes a conception of research inserted in action, as Desroche (1990) would say, highlighting three aspects simultaneously:first, it reflects on the social actors, on their actions, transactions, and interactions searching for the explanation; second, it gives spontaneous practices a rational practice, highlighting the application’s purpose; and third, it is constituted by, or better, through the action taken-on by its actors, both in their conceptions and in their execution and follow-up, which are aimed at the implication (Desroche, 1990L 98).

We used the concepts of research on/for/by to promote the understanding of research as a space for qualification, and we added yet another fundamental element:developing research-action with the students-teachers in order to:first, not only explain reality, but, above all, understand it; second, not only apply knowledge unilaterally, but establish a theoretical/practical relationship to better establish the movement of what is learned at the University and in the school; third, contribute, with this, to emancipating the students-teachers to make them understand the meaning of implying with their realities, taking-on their own actions.

This choice was preceded by the following reflection:identifying, from the beginning, who the student-teacher was, the person’s background, professional performance, experiences in the classroom and in the school.It was necessary to try to be in condition to make a theoretical reading of the person’s identity and think, collectively, about their qualification project as an interface for action, change, and intervention in reality.

Understanding these issues also demanded a maturing process by all, beginning with the qualification/action project’s propositions:

the need to build a balanced trajectory in selecting the themes and guiding the research projects, allowing for a better understanding of the professional learning process;

apprehending these projects would be one of the guiding lines to structure the meetings, encouraging the exchange of experiences and improving the development of competence and knowledge about the production, evaluation, and investigation processes;

understanding the methodological path that was traced (participant observation and its multiple records:using the “reflexive diary;” the semi-structured interviews; the autobiographical reports/memoirs), to understand the theoretical/practical relationship and the types of content at play in the different action/research and learning situations.