Servicios Personalizados
Revista
Articulo
texto en 
Inglés (pdf)
Articulo en XML
Traducción automática
Enviar articulo por emailCompartir
Permalink
Acta Scientiarum. Education
versión impresa ISSN 2178-5198versión On-line ISSN 2178-5201
Acta Educ. vol.45 Maringá 2023 Epub 01-Dic-2023
https://doi.org/10.4025/actascieduc.v45i1.60811
TEACHERS' FORMATION AND PUBLIC POLICY
Teaching conceptions of Agricultural Science professors working at community universities
1Universidade do Oeste de Santa Catarina, Rua Getúlio Vargas, 2125, 89600-000, Joaçaba, Santa Catarina, Brasil.
2Universidade Federal da Fronteira Sul, Chapecó, Santa Catarina, Brasil.
3Universidade Estadual de Maringá, Maringá, Paraná, Brasil.
Teaching, understood as a complex action, mobilizes specific and complementary knowledge. University teaching has shown itself to be dynamic, in the sense that be molded to contemporary context. Nowadays, Higher Education is impacted by competition, productivity and efficiency. The ways of being a teacher, of teaching, of understanding teacher education and the influences of the socioeconomic context form and reveal teaching concepts. Based on these assumptions, in this paper we aim to analyze the teaching conceptions of bachelor teachers beginning their careers. This qualitative and empirical research adopted the interview for data collection with seven bachelor professors, beginners in their careers and working in the agrarian area and in community universities in the western mesoregion of Santa Catarina. The results, built through content analysis, showed that the teaching conceptions are formed by the convergence of the teaching practice bases, training/self-training, the teaching activities carried out, the Agricultural Sciences area and the community universities, as well as the context of performance of these teachers - convergence that also expresses the complexity of teaching in Higher Education. We also found that the socioeconomic context makes higher education institutions and their teachers increasingly involved in market logics.
Keywords: university teaching; teacher training; teaching exercise; community universities
A docência, concebida como uma ação complexa, mobiliza saberes singulares e complementares. A docência universitária tem-se demonstrado dinâmica, no sentido de que se modela ao contexto de sua época. Na contemporaneidade, a Educação Superior está impactada pela concorrência, pela produtividade e pela eficiência. Os modos de ser docente, de exercer a docência, de compreender a formação docente e as influências do contexto socioeconômico formam e revelam concepções de docência. A partir desses pressupostos, neste estudo objetivamos analisar as concepções de docência de professores bacharéis iniciantes na carreira. Esta pesquisa, qualitativa e empírica, adotou a entrevista para a coleta de dados, junto a professores bacharéis, iniciantes na carreira e atuantes na área das Ciências Agrárias, em universidades comunitárias da mesorregião Oeste de Santa Catarina. Os resultados, tratados por meio da análise de conteúdo, demonstraram que as concepções de docência são formadas pela convergência das bases para o exercício docente, da formação/autoformação, das atividades docentes exercidas, da área das Ciências Agrárias e do modelo comunitário, bem como pelo contexto de atuação desses docentes - convergência que também expressa a complexidade da docência na Educação Superior. Constatou-se, ainda, que o contexto socioeconômico faz com que as instituições de Educação Superior e seus docentes fiquem cada vez mais envoltos em lógicas de agenciamento.
Palavras-chave: docência universitária; formação docente; exercício docente; universidades comunitárias
La docencia, concebida como una acción compleja, moviliza conocimientos únicos y complementarios. La docencia universitaria se ha mostrado dinámica, en el sentido de que se modela en el contexto de su época. Hoy en día, la educación superior se ve afectada por la competencia, la productividad y la eficiencia. Las formas de ser docente, de enseñar, de comprender la formación docente y las influencias del contexto socioeconómico configuran y revelan conceptos de docencia. Con base en estos supuestos, en este trabajo pretendemos analizar las concepciones de docencia de los docentes diplomados que inician su carrera. Esta investigación cualitativa y empírica adoptó la entrevista para recolectar datos de siete profesores con diplomado, principiantes en su carrera, que trabajaban en el área de Ciencias Agrarias en universidades comunitarias en la mesorregión occidental de Santa Catarina. Los resultados, tratados a través del análisis de contenido, mostraron que las concepciones de la docencia están formadas por la convergencia de las bases para la práctica docente, la formación / autoformación, las actividades docentes realizadas, en el área de las Ciencias Agrarias y en el modelo comunitario, así como por el contexto de actuación de estos docentes - convergencia que también expresa la complejidad de la docencia en Educación Superior. También encontramos que el contexto socioeconómico hace que las instituciones de educación superior y sus profesores se involucren cada vez más en la lógica de agencias.
Palabras clave: docencia universitaria; formación de profesores; ejercicio de enseñanza; universidades comunitarias
Introduction
This paper aimed to analyze the teaching conceptions of bachelor teachers beginning their careers, taking into consideration the required bases for the profession, the teacher training, the developed activities, the Agricultural Science field, the community universities environment and the contemporary context in which those institutions are placed. Thus, in this first section, it is presented the theorical basis related to university teaching and the methodological choices which guided the development of this empirical research. In the following section, it is shown and analyzed the empirical data based on the theory. Last, it is presented some conclusions regarding the said research.
Discussing University teaching goes beyond the intention of conceptualizing it in its etymological description, from the latin docere, which meaning is close to teaching and understanding. University teaching is known equally as a complex action and as a singular action, built through the teacher interactions with their colleagues, students and the institutional context (Pensin, 2019). The ways of being a teacher, of teaching and of understanding teacher education unveil the teaching conceptions remarked here.
According to Cunha (2006), it is said that university teaching expresses a notion of experience; notion of research and of naturalized teaching. When conceived as a notion of experience, the values and the practices built through the experience with the students and impacted by the policies imposed on the regulatory processes are the main point; as a notion of experience, teachers understand teaching as a process. As a notion of research, the emphasis is on the academic profile with a strong investigative tradition. The author also mentions the notion of naturalized teaching, that happens when “The professor teachs based on their experience as a student, inspired by their former professors” (Cunha, 2006, p. 258, our translation). The different teaching conceptions are reflected on the completeness of the action, on the teachers’ needs, on the mobilization of knowledge and on the intricacy of one’s professional activity.
As a complex action (Cunha, 2006), it mobilizes essential, specific and complementary knowledge, surpassing the in-classroom needs, because those knowledges are attached to the teaching, the research, the extension and the school management. Those knowledges are intertwined, stabilish fundamental theorical-practical, and also epistemological, approximations, and it is possible to build them in consistent, sistematics and/or less sistematics training processes, but equally marked by reflection moments, and also adding the ethical-political nature. Those knowledges do not overlap nor are enough by themselves; it is its diversity and its complementarity that matters to teaching.
Mobilizing knowledge suggests that teachers master practical conditions and, therefore, may be able to face complex and unexpected situations. The construction of teaching knowledge happens through the professional exercise, it directs the everyday practices, implies experiences and requires a theoretical-methodological basis. Its development demands time and maturation, in a way that the reflections and applications arising from this process are the basis of the way teachers conceive their teaching. The variety of characteristics which involve the teacher traning makes planning those traning processes a challenge of, to list a few, little finalcial funds, incipient hours and overly instrumental demands.
The pedagogical training of professors, that usually are in charge of Higher Education institutions, needs to take into consideration that many of them did not study education; they have bachelors, Masters or Ph.D degrees and join the university teaching career without a prior pedagogical training, but instead having years focused on their researches’ development and, by entering the teaching field, they need to study and acquire knowledges about the teaching-learning process.
Planning teacher training courses based on the needs and required knowledges for teaching may take a longer period of time, an involvment of professionals and an adequate infrastructure. However, it makes the training processes more appealing and assertive.
Apart from the general view that includes a large number of participants, oriented training activities can be more effective when directed to specific needs. Teachers who are conscious of their training necessities may educate themselves through self reflection, as well as they may have a better outcome from formal pedagogical training moments. It is necessary to take into consideration, when talking about teachers training, the never ending condition of a teacher training (Wiebusch & Bolzan, 2018), something that ends up charactering teaching learning as a permanent learning.
This permanent learning notion resonates with studies such as Possamai’s (2003), which point out to teacher’s willingness of reviewing their practices and conceptions, from a view from which they see their teaching training as incomplete. This consideration is relevant when teachers own up to the difficulties together with the needs that make up the teaching and pedagogical fundamentals of their profession. In a similar view, the acceptance and recognition of the training necessities of bachelor professors, in order to overcome their difficulties (specially in the beginning of their teaching career) and lower their issues, are able to provide the necessary transition to professional stabilishment of this Higher Education professor.
Teaching, an complex and multidimensional action, requires - either coming from the instution or the teachers themselves - investments in distinct yet indissociable dimensions. Zabalza (2004, p. 106) introduce as dimensions of teaching:
‘Professional dimension’: essential components that distinguish the teacher’s action, related to the expectations of their performance, needs, identity construction as a teacher;
‘Personal dimension’: refers to the personal way the teacher gets involved and commited to their career, considering the teaching life cycle and the possible moments of uneasiness, results of the professional exercise;
‘Administrative dimension’: questions related to the professional practice and the strategies for maintaining the institutional link.
The professional dimension, according to Zabalza (2004), has its knowledge centrality based on the field, on the object of research and on the specificities of the components. Teaching the content may take up the centrality; nevertheless, teaching is built of wider characteristics and knowledges specific from the education field, such as qualification, continuous teacher education, didatic, embodiement of technologies, methodologies and, also, conducting teaching resources in a way it adjusts itself to this job development needs.
On the personal dimension, “Teachers teach what they know as much as what they are” (Zabalza, 2004, p. 131). Two aspects are relevant: the personal satisfaction and the career. In that regard, the improvement of the relations betweet one with one’s job may increase their satisfaction, and the expectation of personal and professional growth may be quoted as adequate to satisfaction. The administrative dimension may guarantee the professional acting in a smooth way or destabilized, depending on the contractuals guarantees as upon entering as upon pursuing the career, or even specific criteria to the promotions inside teaching career.
It is known that those teaching dimensions make up a dinamic set marked by the interseccion of its aspects. Teachind dimensions could be seen as independent, however, they are inseparable when analyzed from the perspective of a person’s constitution and their professional improvement. Said dimensions do not aim to dictate teaching models, but are undertaken with the aim of expanding the teaching conceptions analisis - because it is believed that these dimensions are revealed on the singular constitution of each teacher’s teaching activity.
Although said dimensions may be seen as characteristics of teaching in any education level, when referring to Higher Education teaching, this professional dimension presents hardships. According to Pensin (2019, p.62, our translation) Higher Education teaching:
(1) Occurs in a instution whose educational action has as an assumption one’s profissionalization; (2) Surpassing the action of teaching, the imperative of knowledfe production operates on it through academic research and sharing such knowledge; (3) the educational processes with which is involved, mobilizes adults oriented teaching activities, whose cognitive, social and affectionate constitution, experiences and orientations or objectives are distinct from those oriented to the adolescent or the child.
Therefore, Higher Education teaching is constituted in a particular and singular way, mobilizing elements from personal, professional and/or institutional nature that, reffering to the latter, reflects the need of facing challenges, many originated from the teaching field itself (Higher Education and institutions). This field is surrounded by uncertainities; its frontiers are not always clear nor limited and there are many tensions and usually unexpected conflicts (Pensin, 2019).
One of the possible tensions which are part of this field is the entrepeneurship of Higher Education. University teaching from the point of view of the market logic enhances, as reported by Pensin (2019), the performative individual, who positively answers to competitive differentiation, shows themselves adaptable, innovative and efficient, satisfying the technology and innovation requirements, fulfilling the of scientific knowledge production rigor and emphatically answering to transformative action with social responsability.
Understanding Higher Education teaching as a management action (Pensin, 2019, p. 144, our translation) requires from the professor “[...] links between innovation and entrepreneurship to research and technology production and teaching methodology”. In this logic, it is incresead the productivity, the supremacy through competition and development of skills such as leadership, flexibility, the capacity of achieving goals and the meritocracy.
Hence, as in accordance with the author, the university is closer to an agency conception, where services are offered and deals are discussed. There is, when talking about Higher Education, a fast and accentuated process of commoditization, the marketing of training processes, the production and sharing of knowledges, that makes the university a sacrifice on the market altar, as said by Bianchetti and Squissardi (2017).
In this context, whose implications to teaching are not unquestionables, but acknowledged as evil, the business logic has explictly or implicitly, a desired profile for the workers of higher education institutions, highliting the institutional pedagogic projects that suggests desired abilities in their students such as the capacity to face challenges, to bear pressure, among others. By producing and reproducing this training profile, for Pensin (2019, p.157, our translation), “[...] teaching is impacted by this positioning from the institution which has the market logic as one of its basis and which mobilizes strategies, among them, the continued teachers training”.
In this scenario of dissemination and institutionalization of Higher Education entrepeneurship, the expansion of professional teaching activities stand out. Professors are required to have more and better actions, in a multifunctional perspective. Pimenta and Anastasiou (2005) clarify that this job has required teachers to be adaptable and unpredictable, at the same time that accumulated experience is not a standard for safe and succesfull actions.
Faced the imperative of being efficient and performative (Farias & Pensin, 2019), to what extent can this flexible professional “[...] dive into didatic and pedagogical aspects in order to, precisely, prepare a quality class, prepare a adequate assignment, reflect on their teaching action, improve it and monitor their students learning?” (Manffra, 2014, p.19, our translation)
The time dedicated towards the job, nowadas, has increased. Much from everyday time is dedicated towards one’s profession. Working from home is also possible, thus working becomes a full time and performative action, compromising one’s quality of life, and such habits bring consequences such as precariousness and deprofessionalization, whose reflexes accentuate the weakening of the notion of a working class.
If only the personal dimension is taken into consideration, being our choice to emphasize it, Manffra (2014) argues that the time reserved to the teacher for planning and making their activities can be compared to a “[...] short blanket and, invariably, it is necessary to choose which area of our life it will cover, taking the risk of languishing the uncovered parts” (Manffra, 2014, p. 23, our translation).
The complexification of teaching as an action has added, during recent years, the multiplicity of functions on the professor’s hands. Those functions go beyond activites related to teaching, research and extension, being assigned to them institutional functions, of plannning and of management. That is, professors take up multitasks, something that Wiebusch and Bolzan (2018, our translation) call the academic “quadripod”: teaching, researching, extension and management activities.
Constantly professors are asked to actively participate in management decisions, on the curriculum making, on the analisys and implementation of institutional and governmental policies. Still, it is added to this group of function the responsability of knowing how to use the new technologies, the development of innovative methodologies and the improvement of the critical and scientific thinking. All of these funcions require time from the teacher, something they often do not have.
From this lack of time and the impossibility of owning up all these demands, Chauí (2001) argues around what she calls the teaching incompatibilities. The multiplicity of functions, beyond the complexity of one’s personal and professional constitution, expose the extent of influences and requirements to university teaching. It is an intense movement of restoring higher education teaching.
Furthermore, it is our responsability to highlight the singularity of community university teaching. The community university model marks the Higher Education’s reaching country areas in Santa Catarina. This model suggests that the university is innovative and knows about the reality and its issues - something inherent to its projects, that aim to comtemplate the socioeconomic development and regional technological capacitation. With this constitution, the community model also presents itself as an agency of production and sharing of scientific knowledge.
From this context and mobilizing the referentials presented above, it was conducted a research with a qualitative approach, whose objective was to investigate the teaching conceptions of bachelor professors in Agricultural Sciences beginning their carrers in community universities in the western mesoregion of Santa Catarina3.
Choosing the theme of university teaching, by the authors, is based on their activities in this context and their researches. Working in a community university, located in the countryside of Santa Catarina state, also mobilized the interest of the authors. The western mesoregion of Santa Catarina, besides having the community universities as one of its characteristics, is impacted by the agricultural business. Thus, we have decided to study the teaching in Agricultural Sciences developed by bacharels that, in this mesoregion, have a big number of zootechnicians, vetenarians and agronomists.
This research adopted as the data colleting method the on-line interview with seven professors, all graduated either in Veterinarian Medicine, Zootecnia or Agronomia, with up to 5 years of teaching experience and actively working in two communities universities in the field of Agricultural Science4.
The results, analysed through content analisys, emphasizes the teaching conceptions andtake as references the fundaments of teaching; the teaching training; the teaching activites; the Agricultural Science field, the community university model and the context.
Teaching conception of bachelor professors beginning their carrers
It is important to highlight the understanding of, even when facing problematic situations specific from the context and formulations from the university teaching field, something that gives the teaching activity an identity notion - thus distinguishing it from other kinds of teaching, those “non-university”. This singularity is built amidst institutional and contextual relationships, the specific field of knowledge of this professor, the experience, the subjectivity. That being said, teaching is the way, not a mold (Pensin, 2019).
There are various bases from which the professors build up their teaching, they assume or reinforce ways more os less coherents to their professional acting, oriented towards something that Cunha (2011) calls good practices.
The interviews conducted in this research presented data referring to the ‘bases for teaching exercise’, which had a theoretical, practical and pedagogical analisys mobilized by the professors actions. The professors said:
The base would be the book. And the news I bring [...] are from articles [...]. I find many mistakes on books [...] The article brings the newest discussions in our field, it has to be both, together. The pedagogical is something life teaches and the training from the “NAP - Núcleo de Apoio Pedagógico” (Pedagogical Support Center) helps (Julieta).
Teaching at the public service ended up giving me more basis and both theoretical and practical knowledge to improve [my] classes. Experiences’s videos are fundamental. On veterinary medicine field, the student is used to having the practical part, [...] it is a very much practical course. [...] We need the practice, [...] [and not only] the theoretical study based on reading [...]. They offer their knowledge. [...] I learn a lot with them, and I always say “you have to talk, because I learn a lot with you” (Ofélia).
I choose some scietific papers to implement [my classes] and send it to the students via e-mail [...]. I add some clinical cases of mine, books and scientific magazines [...] I grab four or five books [...], get what I think is important and add things from my routine at the clinic. They like it. Books, videos, articles and experience. When I participate in a congress, I bring something new. I am also part of WhatApp groups with clinical cases discussions, Telegram, something always comes from those plases too (Bianca).
I focus on books, [...] using those from the library and now there are some e-books. But books end up becoming out of date. I focus a lot on scientific papers (Emília).
I work a lot with books, and implement [my classes] with scientific papers. I try to keep myself updated by watching lectures, going to congresses [...] It is a way to elaborate a better technical class. Speaking from a practical point of view, there is no other method. Working is the way. Thankfully veterinary medicine has practical classes (Cláudio).
[...] Scientific papers, basis materials, the book. But it is not enough reading articles only, because they represent cuts from the reality presented on books. If you only focus on papers, you are limited, because you read the cut [...]. So, you need to look in both sources: books and articles. I talk to producers or to our students, we also learn things during the practice, on the every day life. [...] I really like Youtube, nowadays it brings many knowledges, it has [...] lectures or someone with a great reputation speaking (Romeu).
The theoretical bases from the interviwed are, most of the times, oriented to the basis of curricular components under their responsability and converge to books and papers from the field. About the pratical references, we see a mix in their responses, sometimes valuing their own professional experiences at a clinic or public service, other times valuing the experienced knowledge of their students’ practice.
It was memorable the expression that the bases for practical acting is built through the exchange of knowledges with their students because, many being producers or children from rural producers, they are encouraged to socialize their experiences dealing with the ground, provinding a joint knowlegde aquisition, in which both theory and practical activity of the professors are united to the students empiricism.
On the contrary, the pedagogical bases were not very mentioned by the interviewed, in other words, there is a blank regarding the pedagogical bases admited by these professors for developing their teaching. Apart from Julieta, who says that for her pedagogical practice “[...] life teaches [...]” and “[...] the Pedagogical Support Center helps [...]”, while the other participants did not mention any pedagogical basis to their teaching activity. This finding is worrying, because, these professors are unaware of authors, theories and orientations exclusive of their career field, also known as the educational field.
This reminds us of Possamai (2003) when the author points to the possibility of bachelors professors reviewing their practices and teaching conceptions once they recognize that their teacher training is incomplete. We have also noticed a motion of gathering references through digital technological resources - mentioned by Bianca and Romeu -, social medias and information sharing, something that may have been emphasized more since working from home became a necessity due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The teacher ‘training’ of bachelors professors was analyzed through their training processes, both institutionals or individually searched for. The professors related:
During the Ph.D time there is a curricular component named teaching internship, it happens during two semesters and it is where we follow professors during their classes and they allow us to teach some of them, elaborate and correct assignments. [...] It is a bit limited because we can not teach all the classes [...] So, we learn it the hard way. [...] There are training courses every semester [...], at the Pedagogical Support Center, they are excellent and show us a way. [...] Those are very important themes, themes from our doubts, mainly relating on how to elaborate a test [...] All [the courses] that I was able to attend, I did, but some end up overlaping with other schedules (Julieta).
I have done many courses, but they were about my field. [...] All of this helped me when I started working, the knowledge from these courses. It is something that I want to get back on doing, courses [...] (Gertrudes).
I feel this necessity of going on a post-graduate course about Higher Education, [...] in order to learn more about the pedagogical part. [...] I feel the need, yes, because there are terms that I do not comprehend [...]. I do not know, I need to research, go after understanding it (Ofélia).
Every year the university helds a teaching series with several lectures. It is very organized. You choose the themes you want to participate, the university offers those lectures, but it is not the same as having this pedagogical training. I do not face difficulties to elaborate my classes because I know what I am talking about. But there must be tools or techniques that one learns at Pedagogy [course] (Bianca).
At the end of my Ph.D program, we had the opportunity to attend a teacher’s training program which lasted a year and a half, on the weekends. [...] It was something I went after, something else for my curriculum vitae, for my knowledge, because during the post-graduation period, the Master and Ph.D programs, we have teaching practices, but this subject has little hours and it is not that [big of a] responsability. By the end of july some trainings happened at night [...] they were [...] moments to listen and learn a little bit more, but you need to practice (Emília).
Every semester there is a week of teacher training, in which there are many lectures focused exclusively on methods and new didatics [sic]. [...] I do not see an institutional support to go after, for example, a scholarship or something else. There was a time I wanted to go after a specialization in cardiology (Cláudio).
The pedagogical part, in fact, was the university. Of course that, during the Masters program, there are subjects about philosophy and teaching, but after, it was all from the university practice. The management part was something I went after, by myself (Romeu).
As for the teaching internship on post-graduate courses, it is hilighted through Emilia’s, Romeu’s and Julieta’s reports, that it was not enough to sustaing a pedagogical practice in the beginning ot their teaching career. Although they have done the teaching training during their Masters or Ph.D program - something the current educational policies recommend -, the professors acknowledge that stricto sensu training is not enough for the teaching activity.
It is possible to consider a significant motion from community universities, through their pedagogical support sectors, to answer many of the professors needs. On the trainings promoted by the instituion, some questions are positively highlighted such as frequency and the type of content addressed which meet the requests from the interviewed professors. On the other side, there are some professors who highlighted the overlaping of scheduled activities and, consequently, their unavailability to be part of those training moments.
Yet, the professors recognize that teching training is dinamic, inesxhaustible and recurring. A more focused investigation about the training offered by the institutions would be fit, specially when it corroborates with the idea of it being important and fundamental for teachers training, specially focusing on those bachelor professionals who became professors and lack pedagogical knowledgments. On this subject, Possamai (2003) points out the importance of knowing and attending the training needs from bachelors who begin their teaching career.
Regarding selftraining, it is noticed among the participants that this search is directed to the aplicability of the knowledges, as well as keeping their abilities properly updated. As an example, Emília attended a specific specialization in teachers training, and other participants also expressed their wish to go on a post-graduate program about teaching, assigning to this training the possibility the possibility of building notions about knowing how to teach.
In other cases, selftraining is taken solely from the perspective of knowledge in their specific field of study, something that implies a distance from professional teaching identity and it may contribute to the deprofessionalization of the category. Cunha (2006, p.262, our translation) calls this a “[...] speech of deprofessionalization [...]”, because professors acknowledge the need of multiple knowledges, including the pedagogical one, however they still keep on reinforcing their specific field knowledge as the principal one in their teaching.
The majority of the professors interviewed, besides the teaching activities, take part in distinct university activities related to research, extension and management, according to their answers:
I help in the management of the farm. Together with other professors we are able to keep the farm working without outside workers [...]. We are leading a research project, but unfortunately we are lacking students, resources [...]. Also we are able to be part of extension (Julieta).
I do not really know how to talk about the extension [part]. I have many undergraduate research projects, which are part of research [part], I also have final papers (Gertrudes).
Last year the coordination invited me to work inside the “Clínica Escola” (School Clinic) [...], to help small animals clinics, surgery clinics [...], I am responsible for the sector [...]. The research [part] is practically none (Bianca).
During the extension projects we have partnerships [...], with small properties. My extension project, which I love, we develop it together with the Masters program. [...] I was on my fifth semester and I stayed 10 years inside this lab, including my undergraduate research project, Masters and Ph.Ds period. It was there where I found myself interested in researching in the parasitology field. The challenges started during [my] undergraduate research project. My academic advisor provided a lot of this. I tell my mentees “I had someone who capitivated me and I want to do that with you too”. This is what I try to do with my undergraduate research project mentees [...] I was in charge of the lab [...] (Emília).
On my first semester, I was fortunate to advise a undergraduate research project student, but I do not see many interest from the students. I tried having a second student. There are some questions that may demotivate some of them and, even this bureaucratic issue, however there is no research without bureaucracy. [...] I have eighteen hours of teaching and about twenty hours of technical responsability, it is a management position [...] Now I am trying to use students to help me making [articles], [...] publishing in academic journals [...] I check on the community’s animals, but it is [part of] a practical class, thus it is not a extension project [...] (Cláudio).
I am responsible for two labs and a post-graduation course, for making schedules and deciding who the professors are going to be. Not the bureaucratic nor financial part, but the technical one. We have an Innovation and Research Center, [...] from which I am part of, I help on the decision making (Romeu).
I live in [another State] and when I go to the university, I teach in the morning and in the afternoon. So I can not arrange [my time] with extension projects or research [...], I do not do it because I do not have time (Ofélia).
As for participation in extension projects, Gertrudes was unfamiliar with it, while Ofélia and Cláudio said they did not take part in any of it. The little participation of some professors within the extension activities may be a direct consequence of their emergency, paid by hour, contracts (Gertrudes and Ofélia work approximately 10 weekly hours). The service provided by Bianca and the lab responsability of Romeu may be considered extension activities, however those informations are not clear. Active involvement with extension activities was declared by Julieta and Emília, the last one reporting a strong feeling of affection towards her project.
Having ties with the community is one of the bases of community universities, and in this investigation it has been found certain limitations imposed to the teaching activity due to carrying out extension activities. It was noted that, both the intitutional mission and vision from community universities in the western mesoregion of Santa Catarina have a long way to become, in fact, promoters of social transformation through extension and research.
Some of the management activities related by Julieta, Bianca, Emília, Cláudio and Romeu are being part of School Clinic’s decisions, having lab responsabilities, coordinating a post-graduation course, helping in the decision making in the “Centro de Inovação e Pesquisa” (Innovation and Research Center), technical responsibility in administrative function and the farm’s management. Ofélia stated not being included in management functions and Gertrudes did not mention it. This non-involvement, again, is related to the hourly professors. Some professors naturally are a part of management activities, maybe motivated by their personal and administrative dimensions (Zabalza, 2004).
On the contrary, we can analise this participation from an imperative of efficiency and productivity perspective. To Farias and Pensin (2019, p. 4897, our translation) “The constant need for better performance places requirements on results and attach a kind of pride feeling on delivering a quality service”. Under this market support, the task overload is a logic that is established requiring professional performativity, in which the results are measured by one’s performance and where it is also extended, implicitly, the wish for recognition and visibility.
Research was mentioned as an interest among the participants, who talked about their wish to be more envolved in these projects. Cláudio, Gertrudes and Emília related being academic advisors of undergraduate research projects; Julieta, Emília and Romeu mentioned the condution of research in the farm, the lab and the center, something that suggests team studies.
Apart from that, professors also pointed out some difficulties faced in order to develop research, such as little students interest, the lack of resources, the bureaucracy - something that may unmotivate them. This is a structural situtation, institutionalized within the university, that interferes in the way teaching is conceived. It is worth to mention that it is common the feeling of disappointment among many Masters and Doctors, specially among the newly graduated ones, who enter the university teaching career expecting to develop research but do not find the conditions to do so (Feldkercher, 2018).
Data allow us to elucidate the presence of professors who only ‘teach’ inside the university. On the other hand, we notice that the majority of the professors develop activities regarding the university’s ‘quadripod’ (Wiesbuch & Bolza, 2018, our translation): teaching, researching, extension and management activities, something that indicates the complexity of university teaching and the intensification of the teaching career. The university has a political and scientific vocation that is often incompatible. One of the incompatibility factors is the [...] temporality that governs teaching and research that governs politics” (Chauí, 2001, p. 120, our translation).
Other incompatibility factor between the vocations comes from, according to the author, the brazilian social structure, that promotes exclusion. The university, in this way, reproduces this exclusion environment, when it does not reach the required formative condtitions and stimulation of scientific research. The author extends her analisis to other important incompatibility factors, one of them being the fact that universities leave up to the market the definition of teaching priorities’ and of the caractheristics of the research process. The condition pointed out by Chauí (2001) presents itself on community universities researched on this paper to the extent that the joint of teaching, research and extension, on the professional training of the available courses, is limited due to some temporalities. Something noticed is the priorization of professional training courses to meet the needs of local or regional market.
By looking the ‘Agricultural Sciences and the community model’, it was possible to determine caractheristics of the teaching activity of the professors from this context, because in the constitution of the community model, regional economic development is intertwined, as the region has an economic vocation for agribusiness.
About this singularity, the participants said:
[...] it is very dinamic because Agricultural Sciences is not only about the animals; we discuss about the plants, which is the food, the involved people, the producers and animals’ owners, the farm owners [...]. The first impact that I had when I came here was: I am in the Santa Catarina’s barn (Julieta).
During my job with the students, we challenge ourselves, considering the context, trying to innovate on the practical, simple and cheap resonings that help the producer, [...] that are useful [...]. We always aim to answer the producer’s questions, our region problems, with a doable and innovative approach (Gertrudes).
The vetenerian medicine goes to school to teach, look through a microscope, see parasites, teach about rabies and diseases that animals may pass on to humans. The public university where I graduated at did not have this community model [...] Here I notice this worrying, of searching for students, getting scholarships, the treatment with the student is different. It is very nice, because the students notice this and pay back the professor inside the classroom with respect, with consideration (Ofélia).
I think the main idea of being [a] community [university] is due to the fact it does not have monetary purposes, it is a university for the community, it aims to answer their needs and urgencies and to create professionals for that reality (Bianca).
It is perfect, it was what captivated me the most because I am from the countryside. The majority of my students are producers’ children. It is a place that I loved since the beggining due to the humble people, the students [...]. Arriving here and seeing the students who arrived at 7h30 in the morning, woke up at 5AM to milk [cows], who are with calloused hands and cracked fingers and yet are here studying... This is what wakes me up, I identify with it, I put myself in their shoes, I try to help, because I am a modest person who was raised this same way (Emília).
[...] I notice that there is a quite bigger stability [here] as a professor than in a private instituion [...]. Thinking about Vetenerian Medicine, [...] this region is very strong at pig farming. I believe that the workload here is greater [...]. The university [...] has this role of teaching more professionals for certain areas. [...] An area in which most students show interest is the small animals, dogs and cats, which also does not fail to meet the region’s demans, after all, every region has a small animals demand. During the meetings [...] it is always taken into consideration the food industry field and mainly, the pig farming thing, because it is a field that has expanded and the student has an easier entrance on the market (Cláudio).
A professor [of Agricultural Science] has a general knowledgment [...] in a good way. [...] We are able to discuss many subjects, we study agrarian law, genetics and buildings. [...] On the bad side, there are many theoretical professors and little pratical ones [...] If during your graduation you do not go on internships or do not work nor live the Agricultural field, you will become someone who understand much about the theory but can not relate it nor connect it to the practice. [...] We depend financially on the student [...] Here we treat better the students, we talk more and, in a way, we end up demanding less [from them], because we have to survive financially, and I can not do whatever I want [...] (Romeu).
The analisis suggest the crossing between the Agricultural Sciences field and the community model when demonstrate that there is a meaningful effort to adapt the university environment to the regional conditions, to the training of labor for the agroindustry and to provide improvements to the rural producers. This crossing is seen through the student/professor close relationship. The professors have a emphatic and embrancing relationship with their students who dedicate themselves to activities in the rural field, the professors are commited to helping them and to getting to know their routines. Said crossing is also seen through the close link between the univerisity and the community.
To the participants, what chacaterizes teaching in the Agricultural Science is the fact that this field is considered dinamic, because it covers matters from productive processes to animal health. Their view on the community model - something that also elucidates the area caractheristics - highlights the innovative bias of teaching, with practical applicability, proximity to rural producers, problem solving, proximity between the university and schools and extension projects.
The participants look on a university for the community, without any monetary purposes, demonstrate that these individuals have already incorporated values proposed on the strategical planning of community universities, notably the cooperation and social responsability and integrality. Still, the way they view the student as a client attracts attention, the student funds the university, something that is a central point. Coming from a analisis that the community model does not aim profits, lowering their demands to their students may be a result of understanding about the local reality, thus hiding the student-as-a-client aspect, by which the survival of non-state higher education institutions is assumed. This view appears to be an important conception since it uncovers the issues of teaching quality.
The quality is seen as an object of an ideological battle. On the one hand there is an emancipatory condition of teaching, in which solidarity is focused; on the other hand, there is the possibility of a teaching system focused on the demands of the productive worlds that “[...] has the competitivity as a rival” (Cunha, 2006, p. 260, our translation). Hence, at the same time the institutions become competitive, they input a competitive aspect on their future professionals graduated.
When we consider the impacts of one’s ‘context’ on their teaching, we identify both a market logics on the university practices as well as changes on the teaching practice prometed by the coronavirus pandemic. All in all, the main point on the answers are the dynamicity and the permeability that teaching has nowadays:
I try my best to act cooperatively because this makes us grow much more than acting in a competitive way [...]. [I try to act with a] innovative character [...], in order to have an innovative result, [...] that [solve] problems for the producer, [solutions to] something that is making them lose money or productivity. [I] look to always maximize the data. Knowing the region’s problems, trying to be innovati, bringing answers that add up and give solutions to the producers [...]. I have to be in a constant evolution with what there is in the market, in other words, be alert (Gertrudes).
Imagine now, during the pandemic, myself teaching X-Ray through on-line classes? They must hate me, it is not easy [...]. When I did my first skeleton, it took me a long time, I stayed days and days during the nights, until 1 or 2 in the morning, building it and researching, correcting assignments and papers on the weekend. For a while I can still handle it, but later, I can only see myself as a teacher (Bianca).
[...] time is lost coming up with material, because it is not only the hours [giving] classes, it is 40 hours, plus the amount that you need to se dispor [...]. We are having difficulties with these on-line classes, [...] the contact. [...] They leave the miserable professor here, talking all by herself, [...]. It is very hard to manage the lab, the graduation. I have this personality of wanting to handle everything, this perfectionismo, of thinking that I need to publish, that I need to handle [everything]. There are many demands (Emília).
I feel happy inside the institution. It is a way better work environment than a solemly private institution, it gives a greater stability and consequently, you feel safer, you yield more. As time goes by, you start to notice how much publications are interesting for being approved at a civil service examination and everything else, and becoming an professional with a [good] reputation, because when you publish something in said academic journal of your field, anyone from that field will read your work. So you become well-known, this was a motivation for myself [...]. Many students got a paid internship and graduated [already] having a job. [I] worry about trying to fulfill this need for labor and also to see what are the fields with higher demands (Cláudio).
The majority of our students’ objective is not pursuing a Masters or Ph.D degree and we understand that. We have to teach them what they need to know in order to work, to come back home and work with their parents [...], so that they can improve their family income, to be on the countryside. [...] a student who wants a Master or Ph.D degree will need to go to a federal or state [institution], because of the research [projects], it is easier to go to Masters or Ph.D programs. We have this practical view of giving the class to the producers’ kids, to people who already work in this field [...] We treat them like clients and, deep down, we end up having this [kind of] relation [...]. The pandemic cooled down many of the relationships, it distanced the student from the professor, it distanced [both] the student and the teacher from the knowledge. It is not the same motivation to give on-line classes [...]. I always say “the producer does not want to control the disease, he wants to make money”. So I do not have to teach the student to control the disease, but I have to make him find out what is the best way for the producer to make more money, because if he makes money, everyone else also will. It is a chain reaction (Romeu).
During the interview with Romeu, he was asked about the student being in the client role, and in this condition, which would be the professor’s role? The answer given was: “Difficult [situation], isn’t it?”. The professor’s role before this market setting refers to a possible teaching conception, where the professor’s place is hard to be defined and recognized by the professionals.
The perspective where Higher Education institution are perceibed as an agency corresponds to the business context and market logics which affects Higher Education, “It is expected from the professor to be an agent that needs, for the sake of their action’s performance, to be empowered” (Pensin, 2019, p. 172, our translation). The market logics turns the university into an agency, in which the knowledge is negotiated, it becomes a product, and the teaching processes may be conceived as trainings and pragmatics and utilitarians developments, and everything revolves around pleasing and satisfying the client. It was possible to see that the professor feels the pressure from the clients/students because of their financial contribution. This market logics is observed among professors when delivering the ‘product’ is about the practical usage of said knowledge instead of its investigative aspect.
Another impacts are still felt on teaching, for example, the emphasis on publishing on academic journals, which are meant to give visibility and improve their curriculum vitae. In Gertrudes answer, it is mentioned a rivalry in the publishing matter. Although the participant says that she does not let this market point of view interferes to her work enviroment, it is a fact that the competitiveness for publications is a reality, it surrounds professors teaching, wether they are masters, doctors or post-doctors. This is also related by Cláudio, when he emphasises that having publications provide professional visibility in their field.
Many professors reports also highlight the unsatiable yet unachievable search for knowledge and training, something that, in a way, disturbs the quality iof their lifes due to the pressure, to the increasingly high demands of the teacher’s work. In these elements it is seen a flexible and unpredictable teaching conception (Pimenta & Anastasiou, 2005), which is too demanding to professors, or what Manffra (2014, our translation) calls a ‘short blanket’.
From a social point of view, it is seen that for professors, the students professional insertion is the same as their family’s conditions and their position in the work market is focused one meeting the need of local labor. This condition allows the reproduction and not the resignification of students’ reality through Higher Education.
The market perspective is qualifying and nominating the universities through the commoditization, imposing a Higher Education model. Bianchetti and Sguissardi (2017, p. 76, our translation) explain that, mainly in the most populous urban centers, the “Presence of clientele, wether by number or by the pressure of ‘getting a diploma’, is assured”. The authors emphasize this condition based on the quantitative expansion of institutions and enrollements, as well as the changes of Higher Education fundaments that form clients, and as time goes by, the knowledgement is being tuned and translated as a commodity.
Another contemporary mark is the pandemic of coronavirus, which brang non-measurable consequences, more impacting to the education. The way Higher Education is being setted, in this pandemic situation, has increased a reality that was already emerging, the consolidation of the remote transmission of knowledge. On-line classes have increased the commoditization and according to Bianchetti and Sguissardi (2017), the education and training are sacrificed at the market altar, greatly affecting the way teachers work and how they conceive their teaching.
The use of technologies to compesate the lack of on-site classes revelead a feeling of abandoment and the lack of reciprocity that teachers go through. Emília’s report reflects this condition well. Beyond the distance, the virtual classrooms are lacking involvement, participation and repercussion, without those the professor may become distanced, having the feeling that they taught classes for computers rather than connected students.
Given the authors’ presentation and the participants’ answers, it was possible to say that the market influences had already been impacting teaching. With the Coronavirus pandemic, those influences have itensified.
The close relationship between professor/student, which in the Agricultural Sciences field is a factor of bonding and joint knowledge formulation, was threatened, and the distance in the personal dimension resulted in the suspension of extension and research activities, distancing the university itself from its social surroundings.
This distancing process also sets a new relationship with knowledge. From a market logics perspective, virtual teaching tends to turn the knowledge into an e-commerce, a typical market whose sales are not in person.
Final considerations
The teaching conceptions of the researched bachelor professors, begginers in their carrer, are formed by the conversion of basis to the teaching exercise, the teachers training/selftraining, the teaching activities in their responsability, the Agricultural Sciences field and the community university model, as well as for the context in which those professors work. This convergence also expresses the complexity of university teaching. The presence of professors who are starting their teaching carrer with notorious academic titles, is becoming more common, nevertheless, those professors have little educational knowledge.
Teaching at the community university ends up owning the demands of the market; teachers training, in this context, is attached to the law of supply and demand. These signs may be one of the professors worries, including begginers, who must teach beyond meeting the functionalist-instrumental demand that trains specialized labor for the market and, seeking criticality and cooperation for all segments with the which it has relations.
Beginning a carrer is a moment of emotional overcoming, hence, fundamental to the constitution of an individual, when dealing with a rollercoaster of emotions, raging from overcoming challenges to the euphoria of achievements. It was observed a level of enthusiasm on new professors and a way of facing particular challenges that did not stop nor unmotivated them; on the contrary, those challenges promoted their self constitutions as a teacher. The constitution of their acting bases, based on training processes, is still in development, while they are overwhelmed with workloads, wether inherent to teaching or adjacent to it, such as management activities, something that reflects the business logic in teaching field.
The bases for teaching practice are centered around the practical knowledge of its components, to which they also tend to direct their training processes, while they also recognize their needs for teaching. In Agricultural Sciences and in the community university model in which these professors belong to, they search for close relationships with the students, with the knowledge and the social surrondings. But, the socialeconomic context, worsened by Covid-19 pandemic, has shown that structurally, the institutions and their professionals are increasingly involved in agency logics.
REFERENCES
Bianchetti, L., & Sguissardi, V. (2017). Da universidade à commoditycidade: onde como e quando, se a educação/formação é sacrificada no altar do mercado, o futuro da universidade se situaria em algum lugar do passado. Campinas, SP: Mercado de Letras. [ Links ]
Chauí, M. (2001). Escritos sobre a universidade. São Paulo, SP: Unesp. [ Links ]
Cunha, M. (2006). Docência na universidade, cultura e avaliação institucional: saberes silenciados em questão. Revista Brasileira de Educação, 11(32), 258-271. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1590/S1413-24782006000200005 [ Links ]
Cunha, M. I. (2011). O bom professor e sua prática (24a ed.). Campinas, SP: Papirus. [ Links ]
Farias, T. M. Z., & Pensin, D. P. (2019). Docência na educação superior: Gerencialismo e performatividade docente. In Anais do 14th Congresso Nacional de Educação (EDUCERE) (p. 4896-4898). Curitiba, PR: PUCPR. [ Links ]
Feldkercher, N. (2018). A transição de estudante a professor universitário. Linguagens, educação e sociedade, 23, 168-188. DOI: https://doi.org/10.26694/les. v1i38.6024. [ Links ]
Manffra, E. F. (2014). Profissão: professora. In R. M. S. Nicola (Org.), Ensaios sobre docência universitária (p. 15-23). Curitiba, PR: PUCPR ESS. [ Links ]
Pensin, D. P. (2019). A constituição da docência na educação superior. Curitiba, PR: Appris. [ Links ]
Pimenta, S. G., & Anastasiou, L. G. C. (2005). Docência no Ensino Superior (2a ed.). São Paulo, SP: Cortez. [ Links ]
Possamai, F. (2003). A pedagogia do bacharel: a práxis do ensaio e do erro: um estudo de caso na Universidade da Região de Joinville. Joinville, SC: Univille. [ Links ]
Wiebusch, A., & Bolzan, D. P. V. (2018). Docência universitária: um estudo com professores iniciantes. In E. M. Wiebusch, & M. I. C. Vitória (Org.), Estreantes no ofício de ensinar na educação (p. 121-144). Porto Alegre, RS: Edipucrs. [ Links ]
Zabalza, B. M. A. (2004). O ensino universitário seu cenário e seus protagonistas (E. Rosa, Trad.). Porto Alegre, RS: Artmed. [ Links ]
4Research Project submitted to the Research Ethics Committee, with Certificate of Presentation of Ethical Appreciation number 25378919.0.0000.5367 and Approval Document number 3.728.462.
Received: September 07, 2021; Accepted: January 12, 2022
Este é um artigo publicado em acesso aberto sob uma licença Creative Commons
