La construcción de la autonomía profesional docente: el caso del movimiento de la escuela moderna en las Azores (Portugal)

Abstract

Building up a professional identity assuming a main role to teachers autonomy as well as assuming cooperation as a fundamental issue in teacher training methodology, are commonly being considered main goals for teachers professional learning, along with the new demands in the contemporaneous society and the answers to new challenges as well as the conviction of students «educability». In this paper we describe how these goals have been systematically and almost obsessively undertaken by a group of teachers in Terceira Island, Azores archipelago, Portugal, during the last ten years. A collaborative pedagogy, i.e. changing practices for student achievement as well as making their practice open to peer critique, the student-centered teachers instruction along with a democratic practice within the classroom, which they always try to improve, are the main issues which characterize the work of these professionals. The strategies adopted by this group include the formation of organized working groups where there is a truly cooperation, reflection and sharing of their practices. The learning groups are in the core of the methodology where teachers assist each other in a day-by-day routine and use an open dialogue to express their feelings, expectations and distresses about their own practices.