Casos de ensino na formação continuada à distância de professores do atendimento educacional especializado

Abstract

Teachers of students who have special educational needs often complain that, despite their previous training in special education area, it is hard for them to fit their student´s needs properly. Considering these teachers´ demands this study aims to investigate in what ways a continuous formation program, based on the production and analysis of teaching cases in a virtual learning environment / AVA, could foster learning, researching skills and professional development of special education teachers who work in multifunction classrooms. This program was developed according to the training needs of special education teachers who participated in a survey that took place in Maraba-PA from 2011 to 2014. The research was part of the National Network Study of multi-functional resources classrooms in Brazilian public schools (http://www.oneesp.ufscar.br/). This study has a qualitative approach based on the principles of collaborative action research in a social and historical perspective. The participants were twelve teachers of multifunctional resource classrooms and a coordinator of special education in Marabá-PA. The program has six modules and is 120 (one hundred twenty) hours long. It has been developed in a virtual learning environment and its method is based on the production and analysis of teaching cases which contents and themes belong to special education area. Results were organized in different axes, according to its themes, in order to: a) analyze the influence of collective reflection spaces in virtual learning environment on teaching skills of special education teacher b) investigate the effect of production and analysis of teaching cases on learning and professional development of teachers special education teachers, c) evaluate and validate the potential and limits of using teaching cases in a training program for teachers who teach students with special educational needs in multi-functional classrooms. The study comes to the conclusion that use of teaching cases, demanded theoretical and practical knowledge of teacher, who also had to get in touch with contents of legal documents. The creation and analysis of cases attended many training needs of teacher who have joined this research. The program could also improve their performance and teaching skills. In addition, it supports the inclusion of students with special educational needs in regular schools. Although the collaborative research has led to the arrangement of a course created and developed by teachers, this program has its own limits and doesn´t aim to fulfill every necessity of educator who work in special needs education field.