Avaliação da aprendizagem e a inclusão escolar de alunos com transtorno do espectro autista (TEA): as percepções, a prática pedagógica e as barreiras encontradas pelos professores de Ciências.

Abstract

Basic education teachers encounter numerous challenges throughout their professional careers, including evaluating their students' learning. Even more so when it comes to students with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD). In this way, thinking about the inclusion of students with ASD in Science classes, which sometimes present complex concepts that require a lot of abstraction for their understanding and the way Science teachers usually evaluate their students is that this work focused on the learning assessment. The objective of this research was to understand how Science teachers from public schools in the city of Pelotas/RS have been evaluating the learning of students with ASD. This research presents a qualitative approach and the researched subjects were 07 science teachers from elementary schools in municipal schools. As a data collection instrument, semi structured interviews were carried out from September 2020 to August 2021, which were analyzed using Content Analysis. After analyzing the data, three categories emerged: i) Initial and Continuing Training; ii) The Science teacher's view on the assessment of learning by students with ASD and iii) The role of the assistant teacher and the Specialized Educational Assistance (AEE) teacher at school. As a result, it was noticed that there are strong indications that the gaps left during the initial training of the researched teachers, regarding preparation to work with inclusion and diversity, have brought significant reflections to the development of an inclusive practice among teachers. Because of this, some teachers highlighted the need to search for training that overcome their difficulties in carrying out assessments that include the diversity of students present in the classroom. Among the barriers to planning and carrying out Science assessments for students with ASD, teachers highlighted numerous reasons, including: i) qualified training of teachers to work with inclusion (both future teachers and current teachers) ; ii) difficulty in planning assessments, considering the characteristics and specificities of students with ASD; iii) lack of time / work overload; iv) lack of partnership between classroom teachers, the AEE professional and the assistant teacher and v) difficulty in teaching abstract science concepts. These aspects indicated the existence of methodological barriers. Still, the researcher also identified the presence of attitudinal and instrumental barriers that seemed to be very present among the eachers interviewed. Therefore, in order to eliminate barriers, including the attitudinal barrier, permanent investment is needed in training teachers in practice, as well as the insertion of themes about inclusion and diversity in the mandatory curriculum of Licentiate courses. Thinking about it, the product of this dissertation consisted in the elaboration of a training course, with the intention of discussing themes such as school inclusion, learning evaluation and the characteristics and specificities of ASD