CHARACTERIZATION OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF A COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE TO SUPPORT PRE-SERVICE CHEMISTRY TEACHERS

Abstract

The concept of communities of practice can be used in different contexts, included the educational context. The development of communities of practice where pre-service teachers work together, refine their practices and learn is a good training for these future teachers. Since communities of practice help teachers learn about teaching and improve their practices, this study aim to characterize the project PIBID of chemistry carried out at the University of São Paulo as a community of practice. On the first half of 2013 the PIBID project included 12 pre-service teachers who attended weekly meetings. These meetings consisted of theoretical training about the use of visual tools in teaching and other concepts about education and meetings to plan activities and classes about topics of chemistry to be applied in a public school at the city of São Paulo, Brazil. During these meetings was possible to notice that the pre-service teachers were engaged in a community of practice, demonstrating the three characteristics emphasized by Wenger (2008): mutual engagement, joint enterprise, and a shared repertoire. Thus the project PIBID of chemistry could be characterized as a community of practice. Furthermore, it was noticed that the community helps in the training of pre-service teachers, since it is providing support to them learn about teaching in practice and implement their knowledge. Key words: chemistry teaching, community of practice, pre-service teacher training.