PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN FOR THE TEACHING OF CELL BIOLOGY: CRITICAL THINKING AND SOCIOPOLITIC ACTION INSPIRED IN THE CASE OF HENRIETTA LACKS
cell biology teaching; educational design research; Freirean critical pedagogy; Science-Technology-Society-Environment; Socio-scientific issues; ethic.
Starting from the problematic that the cell biology teaching has been developed in a conceptualist and scientism way, with little or no space for the historical, epistemological and axiological discussion of science, this research sought to develop, from the Freirean philosophical grounds, the Science-Technology-Society-Environment educational perspective and the use of Socio-Scientific Issue, a teaching proposal - with generalizable design principles - that promote the debate about an ethical problem of othering negative, focusing on racism, sexism and class oppression. Such negative othering are revealed substantially in the Henrietta Lacks' case - a woman, black and poor who had cervical cells used for cancer research without her knowledge and consent in the context of segregationist laws in the first half of the twentieth century, in the United States. Researches that evidence the absence of school approaches that discuss ethics are not uncommon, while many studies emphasize the importance of triggering this type of discussion for student critical thinking. Thus, this work aimed to investigate the design principles of a teaching sequence about mitosis and cancer, inspired by the history of Henrietta Lacks, designed to promote critical thinking skills and sociopolitical action proposition by high school students. More specifically, we aim to: a) to analyze cell biology approaches proposed for High School, through a review of the didactic experiences reported in the specialized literature; b) to analyze forms of othering based on the articulation between racism, sexism and class oppression present in the Henrietta Lacks’ case; c) to develop design principles of a teaching sequence about cell biology, to mobilize content in different dimensions, with the objective to promote critical thinking skills and sociopolitical action proposition by high school students; d) to analyze the implications of the previous validation process of a teaching sequence on mitosis and câncer, by biology teachers and feminists, for the development of an Educational Design Research, and e) to investigate design principles for the teaching of mitosis and cancer of a teaching sequence that aims to promote critical thinking skills and sociopolitical action proposition. From a collaborative work and adopting a qualitative approach, we developed this research based on the Educational Design Research, contemplating the preliminary phase, in which we carry out analyzes on the context and the needs, the development of a conceptual framework based on literature and teacher knowledge, systematized through the answers to the specific objectives a, b and c. We also developed the prototyping phase, through the design of the didactic intervention, the validation of the same by teachers of biology and feminists and the investigation of the design principles, contemplating the objectives d and e. Thus, a prototyping cycle was carried out with formative evaluation for the improvement of the intervention, through which we analyzed the potentialities and the limits of empirically tested design principles in the real context of the High School classroom of the Instituto Federal da Bahia, Campus Camaçari. This research was conducted by analyzing the reach of planned teaching expectations, using four specific analytical tools: focus group interactional analysis, critical discourse analysis,analytical tool on developing critical thinking skills, and analytical tool on the elaboration of proposals of sociopolitical action. The results point to a set of evidences that indicate the validity of the three design principles investigated. However, for each design principle and its expectations, some ways of improving teaching practices were listed to better meet the expectations that were expected, aiming at iteration in future studies. We hope that our research contributes to the teaching of biology articulated with the education of ethnic-racial relations, which promotes gender equity and is committed to positive social transformations.