Análise dos discursos dos professores de uma licenciatura em Ciências Biológicas sobre o ensino de evolução: dificuldades, limitações e abordagens promissoras

Abstract

This work aims to point out and discuss aspects of the teachers initial formation that are related to the teaching of biological evolution in a teaching training course in Biological Sciences in the Faculdade de Formação de Professores of the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro. Biological evolution is considered both by several researchers as well as by the official educational orientations as a unifying axis inside Biological Sciences that, besides linking several areas which comprise Biology, is indispensable for the comprehension of several biological concepts and processes. The data were collected by means of semi-structured interviews with four graduation professors, two of which are responsible for specific biological disciplines and the other two by disciplines related Science and Biology teaching. The several discourses were analyzed by methodology of Content Analysis. The results herein presented show that the teaching of the evolutionary theory in FFP-UERJ takes an important place in the students education, along the course, contributing to the construction of a more global view of Biology to many of them. The main difficulties involved in this approach are the absence of interdisciplinary field works; the lack of communication between the professors about this issue; the lack of maturity by the students to understand the evolutionary processes; the absence of supporting didactic materials in certain specific areas and the clash between the scientific explanations and some religious points of view about the origin of the biological diversity. Most of the professors have stressed out the strategies they use to overcome such hindrances in order to include this issue in their disciplines. The result of all this effort is recognized by them when they realize, along the course, that the students have developed the intellectual capacity to relate issues from different areas through the evolutionary perspective.