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Researchers promote renewal in science teacher training
The great social, cultural, economic and environmental transformations of our time challenge the teaching community in terms of the continuous revision of their professional practices in the face of the need to innovate in the STEM areas. This implies that educators should be able to bring research to the classroom and to investigate their own practices. It is important that everyday problems be transformed into learning situations and that they allow building the necessary bridges with the different dimensions of sustainable development.
The activity aimed to exchange and debate among specialists in science education in the region. The topics covered included promoting activities and research as the basis for training future teachers in STEM areas; the promotion of a training that makes possible the investigation of practices, learning and achievements of the students; and questions about how and what to investigate regarding the training of future STEM teachers. The debate on research in science teaching as a training tool led to a workshop on research methodology in science teaching.
The initiative is part of a work that the UNESCO Chair in scientific education for Latin America and the Caribbean (EDUCALYC) has been promoting for more than twenty years in the region, but which will also be complemented by specific initiatives at the local level that are part of the action plan of the Education Programme of UNESCO Montevideo for this biennium, including, by way of example, the promotion of the science clubs programme in Uruguay through the support to the "Scientific Culture" initiative. For Zelmira May, Professional Officer of the Education Programme of the UNESCO Regional Office for Sciences in Montevideo, the presence in the activity of expert researchers from various countries was important, allowing the consolidation of a scientific education network in Paraguay, with the support of the UNESCO.
Lastly, reflections and proposals for specific future actions were shared that visualize and make it possible to put into action the training-research binomial.
