Complexity Knowledge and Pedagogical Practices

Abstract

This study deals with a research conducted with Brazilian and Portuguese teachers through an online course that aimed to design a continuing education approach that integrated basic, undergraduate and graduate education teachers, based on the “Seven Complex Lessons in Education for the Future.” To this end, it focused on the “lesson” that deals with error and illusion, from Edgar Morin’s perspective. The problem that guided the investigation sought to analyze participants’ perceptions about the influence of pedagogical practice, methodology and the proposed learning on a transformation in teaching. The research used a qualitative, action-research approach, and the data was submitted to content analysis using the IBMS Statistics program. Results indicated the occurrence of reflections about the need to consider a thought-reform approach to education, one that overcomes the fragmentation of knowledge. About student engagement in activities proposed by the teacher in class, participants were found to value interdisciplinarity, collaboration, collective work, and the mediation role, and to recognize the influence of psychological aspects on students’ interest in and motivation for learning. Finally, the need to overcome determinist thoughts was considered, thus allowing participants to understand that knowledge is subject to errors and illusions also in education, and that expanding human thought can help in the search for solutions to educational problems.