Teacher Education: Emphasis on Engineering Majors

Silvia Fanucchi Gaia

 Prof. Dr. -Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná - Campus Ponta Grossa, BRAZIL

 

Abstract

As expectations of teachers’ knowledge and skills grow, policies have been enacted with ambitious standards for learning tied to more challenging subject matter content, as well as to get students thinking critically, innovating, solving complex problems, rather than get them performing routine tasks.  However such policies have not provided an improvement on teachers’ education program. Teaching is lacking licensing and accreditation policies that create a greater professional program.  Considering engineering majors, most professors have not undergone a teacher education program.  They are engineers working as professors/teachers.  Responsibilities developed by engineers while their profession is exercised in the industrial field can be used in the teaching process, but they are enough. The fact that pedagogical training is considered an ancillary activity for engineers who teach in universities makes the quality of teaching proposed doubtful, which makes the scope of this study.  This study aims to trace the professional profile of these professionals and the impacts caused within the classroom. Investigating the need for pedagogical training or not, this article uses current references that propose some characteristics that professors/teachers must acquire in order to teach his/her classes in a way that students can have a clear understanding of the discipline, also discussing the reality required by the legislation in force in Brazil and requirements in public policies. With the use of a qualitative methodology, the teaching staff of Production Engineering Program at the Federal University of Technology at Paraná - Campus Ponta Grossa (UTFPR - PG) were interviewed through a questionnaire developed specifically for this work, individually and without revealing their identity, to verify the predominance of pedagogical training, their professional trajectories and their satisfaction regarding the teaching profession at higher education level.

Keywords: Teacher education, knowledge base, engineering majors