Banca de DEFESA: LUCIANO SEDRAZ SILVA

INVESTIGATIVE ACTIVITIES IN PHYSICS TEACHING IN THE LIGHT OF CRITICAL MEANINGFUL LEARNING: 

CONTINUING TRAINING FOR YOUTH AND ADULT EDUCATION TEACHERS

Critical Meaningful Learning; Teaching by Research; EJA; Physics Teaching and Continuing Training.

The use of investigative activities as a teaching strategy in the area of Natural Sciences is widely recognized in the literature as an effective didactic approach in the teaching and learning process. In addition to providing a practical and engaging experience, allowing students to "do science", these activities also encourage critical reflection "about science". This approach favors the construction of knowledge, stimulates active participation of students and enables a deeper and more contextualized understanding of scientific concepts. Although their effectiveness has been proven, investigative activities are still little used by a relevant portion of teachers. In this sense, continuing education plays a fundamental role in expanding and implementing these practices in the classroom. Therefore, the present research had as its general objective to understand the possible contributions of investigative activities to the teaching of Physics from the perspective of the Theory of Critical Meaningful Learning in continuing education with teachers of Youth and Adult Education. To achieve this objective, continuing education was carried out with seven Physics teachers who work in Youth and Adult Education in the city of Juazeiro - BA. This is an intervention research with a qualitative approach, carried out between April 14 and September 13, 2024. The training intervention process was divided into two moments: the first dedicated to planning the activities and the second to the execution of the theoretical and practical activities of continuing education. For data production, the following were used: two questionnaires, a semi-structured interview, observation with video recording, the logbook, document collection and the focus group. After collection, the data were analyzed in light of the theoretical references of the research and the content analysis proposed by Bardin (2011). The results indicate that, initially, teachers had limited knowledge about the Investigative Approach and the Theory of Critical Meaningful Learning. Furthermore, they show that, although they recognize the importance of diversifying teaching strategies, teachers often adopt the traditional method due to the reduced workload of the Physics curricular component, with the expository class being the most used strategy. After the development of the Potentially Significant Teaching Units (UEPS) and the Investigative Teaching Sequence (SEI), teachers stated that these activities favor the construction of knowledge in a more dynamic and contextualized way, making learning more meaningful and accessible to different student profiles. Thus, the investigative activities developed during continuing education proved to be effective, as they presented elements to favor Critical Meaningful Learning for students of Youth and Adult Education (EJA).