Diaries of an intern teacher: problematizing the knowledge of experience in the supervised internship in natural sciences

Abstract

Through this article, we discuss the experience which emerged during the teaching practice held in Supervised Internships II and III of the Nature Sciences program – a teacher training program, Federal University of Pampa, Uruguaiana Campus. This qualitative study was based on the classroom diary as a research instrument presenting as corpus of analysis the diaries produced by the internship teacher after each taught class in elementary and high school. The class diaries are understood from the perspective of Zabalza (2004), who discusses them as a powerful tool to think about teaching practice. The class diaries were analyzed from the perspective of finding the situations which are presented as experiences from the understanding of Larrosa (2002), that is, something which touches, mobilizes and makes us think. In the analysis of the class diaries two moments were evident in the school context. One that presents motivated students who excite the teacher's satisfaction in planning and delivering their classes. Another one that demands greater dedication from the teacher in which the students are undisciplined and present a lack of motivation to learn. In addition, it was evident in the analysis of the class diaries the need of the teacher when going through issues which do not depend on their teaching practice, but which interferes on that, such as infrastructure and school organization. Finally, we defend the importance of using journals, not only as a way of recording the events of their daily lives, but also as a research tool for the teacher to reflect their own practice and qualify their teacher training.