The use of Biology textbooks by public school teachers in Florianópolis/SC

Abstract

In this research, we seek to analyze how teachers use biology textbooks in their didactic-pedagogical practices. At first, the investigation had the collaboration of 43 teachers from public schools in Florianópolis, who answered a questionnaire. After analyzing the responses provided, we selected a school for further study, and thus interviews and observations were carried out with five teachers over the course of a school year. With this research, we noticed that: (a) textbooks are frequently used in classes through the use of different didactic strategies, with the identification and collection of information being its main role; (b) the main text of the student's book, highlighted texts (boxes), images and the questions at the end of the chapters are used frequently; (c) teachers do not follow the systematic progression proposed by textbooks; (d) there is practically no theoretical-methodological discussions about textbooks in the training activities carried out by the professors; and (e) training, characteristics of the profession, characteristics of the work context, characteristics of the textbook and the PNLD are important conditions for the use of textbooks. Faced with these findings, we realize that teachers do not use textbooks in full, they appropriate this material in different ways, transforming it according to various situational constraints.