Métodos de ensino nos processos formativos de professores de geografia em universidades federais do Pará

Abstract

The teaching method in the training of Geography teachers and its articulation with other methods is a central theme of this research. Therefore, the following questions were posed: can the absence or fragility of the epistemological foundations of Geography lead to a weakness in the teaching methods of future Geography teachers? If so, is this weakness expressed by the lack of articulation of teaching methods with philosophical methods in the initial training of Geography teachers? Thus, the general objective was to understand teaching methods in their possible articulations with philosophical, scientific, pedagogical, and didactic methods as elements that can contribute to the training of teachers in Geography undergraduate courses at federal universities in the state of Pará. The methodology was configured through a qualitative approach to the production and interpretation of data, which were produced from a literature review that touched upon teaching methods, philosophical methods, epistemology of Geography, and didactics of Geography. Regarding the documentary aspect, the curricular documents of the Geography undergraduate courses at the Federal Universities of Pará were analyzed. For the production of empirical data, three subjects in the initial teacher training were observed, and the professors who taught them were interviewed. The interpretations of this data were made through the lenses of critical geography and historical-cultural theory. The most eloquent results highlight that the teaching method is guided by philosophical, scientific, pedagogical, and didactic methods. These methods materialize in the teaching and learning process through the teaching method. Regarding the curricular documents, a training oriented by a weak foundation in terms of methods is noted in most of the courses analyzed. In teaching practice, a certain articulation of philosophical and scientific methods was observed in the teaching method. However, there are elements that enhance teacher training: teaching for the development of concepts, developing lenses for reading and intervening in socio-spatial inequalities, and others that weaken it, such as teaching based on empiricism and experience. It was concluded that the teaching method is primarily directed by the teachers' philosophical conceptions of methods, constituting the most guiding element in the selection, framing, and approach to teaching content. Therefore, the teachers' philosophical foundations guide the other methods: the geographical, the pedagogical, and the didactic. It is further concluded that the teaching method, when articulated with other methods in initial teacher training, enhances the development of a thought process peculiar to the Geography teacher: the geographical and pedagogical thinking of the Geography teacher. When teaching Geography content, a conceptual system specific to this science is mobilized, that is, its epistemology, which is produced by, and simultaneously produces, the scientific method of geographical science.