Physical and natural sciences curriculum and teachers' professional culture: conceptions and practices.

Abstract

The Basic School Curriculum Reorganization Process in Portugal and its implication on the concept of curriculum concept and on its organization (defined and organized in terms of the development of pupils’ competences, namely those specific for physical and natural sciences) has caused in the educational arena several discussions and perplexities. Indeed, the concepts of curriculum, competence and teachers’ collaboration have assumed an unquestionable centrality in the educational context. Consequently, their appropriation by the educational actors, namely the teachers, is crucial for the success of the implementation process referred to above. Nóvoa (1999), for example, mentions that the weakness of collaborative practices may have large negative consequences for the teaching profession. This is one of the reasons pointed out by the author why it urges to find new meanings for the collective professional’ s concept and to implement routines of work, ways of decision making and pedagogical practices which calls for the enhancement of teachers’ co-responsibility and the sharing of their practices. However, the new curriculum approach, based on competences and the finding of new meanings for the new collective professional’s concept are, in reality, still fragile and weak in Portugal. This means that there are still confusions and uncertainties which become evident through the existing difficulties on the curriculum management process, namely in the area of physical and natural sciences teaching and learning process. Recent researches on the topic, Abelha (2005) and Martins (2005), and despite the fact of the recognition of the existence of some successful cases, conclude that, at the level of the practices, curriculum changes are still few, both on the way teachers work and on the promotion of significant pupils’ learning outcomes based on the development of competences.