Initiation to university teaching: the building of professorshipness

Abstract

Current research discusses the construction of teaching by focusing on the building of professorship of beginner professors in Higher Education Institutions. The main problem is the understanding of events produced in the building of beginner professors’ professorship. Research aims at acknowledging the relationship between context conditions and configuration ways of professors´ initial teaching and the identification of the repercussion of beginners’ teaching on continuous formative processes. The qualitative and socio-cultural narrative is the methodological approach adopted in current research. Participants are professors from Pedagogy and Special Education Courses of a government higher institution and of a community University. The study developed so far highlights the process of teaching initiation within the university context permeated by feelings of anxiety and insecurity which rise from formative incompleteness that the professors have to face in their educational activities. The lack of places for sharing activities and knowledge which involve the professor’s work is evidenced by feelings of helplessness experienced by professors. The need for systematically organized places should be underscored. They would enable experienced and beginner professors to discuss and share experiences and knowledge related to the specificity of teaching at this teaching level.