The Professional Development of Special Education Teachers and the Teaching of Natural Sciences for Blind and Low-Vision Students

ABSTRACT The objective of this research was to analyze how the potentialities and limits of a formative process involving Special Education teachers can be characterized in order to favor reflections on the performance of these Special Education teachers facing the teaching and learning of Natural Sciences involving blind and low vision students. In order to achieve this goal, we developed a formative process with 17 teachers, 2 of which were blind, who work in the Special Education field in the municipal school system. This qualitative research had as its corpus of analysis: textual productions of the teachers resulting from activities carried out during the formative process; records from a virtual collective diary, and texts originated from transcription of semi-structured interviews. The discursive textual analysis was chosen as the analytical procedure. From the data analysis, it was possible to find out that teachers of Special Education recognize, in parts, the limits of their performance regarding the teaching of Natural Sciences for blind and low vision students. Based on the inter-collective circulation category, derived from Ludwik Fleck's epistemology, attention was drawn to the importance of the interaction between Special Education teachers and different professionals, which might help them face the limits on their performance regarding the teaching and learning of Natural Sciences.