<strong>LEARNING TO TEACH AND TEACHER EDUCATORS</strong>

Abstract

Although the current Brazilian backdrop demonstrates that investments in the elaboration, implementation and assessment of educational public policies concerning teacher education have been made, it can be said that emphasis has been given to the initial and continuing teacher education processes of elementary, medium and high school teachers, considering different knowledge areas. Higher education is still an area in which initiative is weaker. There are no initial teacher education programs concerning the higher education teacher. Only a small part of the faculty that is involved with teacher education courses or programs has some kind of pedagogical preparation. Most of the higher education teachers never had any kind of pedagogical preparation (either pre-service or in-service). This paper presents some aspects – related to characteristics and roles of the teacher educator that must be faced by educational public policies related to varied processes of professional education in the universities, such as: a) the importance of a solid and flexible knowledge base for teaching able to encompass knowledge related to specific content areas; knowledge of formative school contexts; pedagogical knowledge; knowledge of learning to teach processes; knowledge of educational public policies and of their underlying theories; and content pedagogical knowledge; b) the need to construct and to promote strategies for professional development which are not invasive and highlight the beliefs, values and personal theories of the university teachers; c) the importance of construction of communities of learning involving the faculty and the students, and d) the consideration of the ´inquiry as stance´ (Cochran-Smith, 2004) as the axis of the professional development of the teacher educators.