Instituto TIM – TIM Faz Ciência

Educational action that invites Elementary School teachers and students to explore 7 intellectual operations inherent to knowledge production

Proposal

Enhancing children and teenagers’ scientific literacy is one of the greatest challengers of Brazilian education. In the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) of 2018, students’ performance in Sciences has placed the country between the 66th and 68th positions among 77 nations. Brazilians average was 404 points, while students from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries averaged 489 points. According to OECD, Brazil has been keeping a stagnation trend for the past five PISA editions: approximately 43% of students have shown a Science learning below level 2, which is considered basic.

About the initiative

TIM Faz Ciência is an educational action aimed at scientific literacy that involves teachers training and production and distribution of specific educational resources (books for teachers and Students, video-classes for teachers and video storytelling) that propose activities and exploration in classrooms. By means of a path divided into 7 steps, the initiative explores intellectual operations inherent to knowledge production according to the ideas of the American thinker Neil Postman. In his work “Teaching as a subversive activity”, Postman states that all knowledge produced by mankind is the result of a few intellectual operations: observing, verifying, classifying, questioning, defining, applying and generalizing. For TIM Faz Ciência, more important than knowing the content – that which was thought of and produced by science – is the comprehension of the ability to think that led to such a result. TIM Faz Ciência video-classes and educational materials can be accessed and used freely by teachers interested in applying a new Science teaching approach with their students.

Partnerships

Results

369

municipalities served

3.934

schools involved

11.009

teachers

330,300

students participating

Acknowledgements

TIM Faz Ciência was the theme of a scientific paper presented at the III Latin American Association Conference of Investigation in Science Education, held in Mexico.