Supervisão para a autonomia em sala de aula

: marcas de uma experiência pedagógica

Abstract

Contemporary society brings complexity into schools and to teachers’ work. As an attempt to adapt to modern times and to a new education paradigm, the educational discourse has been reassuring the importance of developing new supervisive and collaborative dynamics that can be an answer for the complexity teachers have to deal with on his daily work. Furthermore, speedy transformations in society demand a new kind of education; schools must now educate the individuals as transformative intellectuals and socially interventionists, capable of long life learning, of being autonomous and adapting to a continuously changing society. Therefore, schools need to transform themselves, to reflect and (re)adjust their daily practices. Recognized as an important educational aim, frequently focused on official guiding documents, learner’s autonomy has always been one of my major professional concerns. Consequently, in a certain moment of my professional life, I involved myself in a pedagogical experiment, whose main goal was to develop the learner’s autonomy through a learner-centered pedagogy. Likewise, it also persecuted the (trans)formation and emancipation of both learners and the two teachers involved. This brief experiment aimed at endowing 8th grade learners with metacognitive and reflective skills that allow them to self-regulate their own learning and take responsibility on the process, thus being more autonomous. Set in a collaborative context, this experiment involved a critical reflective approach to teaching practices and students’ learning. It was developed through processes of observation of self-action in class, collaborative peer-based supervision and reflection. It also aimed at the regulation and (re)construction of the teaching practice as a means for professional development. This report has enabled my reflection on the impact of the experiment upon my teaching practice, on the aspects that worked well and the ones that did not, on how I could have improved my teaching practice at the time. Moreover, it made me reflect upon the collaborative and supervisive dynamics I see on my daily practice context, it made me reflect on my concepts of learner’s autonomy, of modern school, of what is teaching. Overall, it made me reflect on the personal transformations I see in myself as a teacher, after this formative path.

Date of Award	17 Sept 2014
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	José Matias Alves (Supervisor) & Lília Ana Silva (Co-Supervisor)