The argumentative design principles of three courses in a Physics undergraduate teacher education program

Abstract

To assure that current science education practices are aligned with recent educational research findings, there must be a constant effort of investigating the environments in which teachers are educated and prepared for their pedagogical action. One of the epistemic practices that should be discussed and taught in every teacher education program is argumentation. Preparing future teachers to construct and evaluate arguments and enabling them to design activities that scaffold students’ argumentative skills has become a highly desirable goal in science education in the past few decades. Despite that, few studies have been devoted to studying the role of argumentation and argumentative development in initial and continuing teacher education. The present study was aimed at observing and analyzing some of the characteristics of three courses of an undergraduate Physics teacher education program at a public university in the State of São Paulo (Brazil), and to compare them in terms of their potential contributions to the development or argumentation skills of its students. Preliminary results suggest that the curricular reform that has been implemented was responsible for shifting practices to a much more updated and theory-informed model, but the program’s focus is still on written instruction, and not on the development of oral communication skills, which would be key for a fertile argumentative development.