Ensinar é Cuidar: Um Percurso Reflexivo na Construção da Identidade Docente em Educação Física

Abstract

The present report describes the trajectory and pedagogical intervention carried out within the scope of the Professional Internship curricular unit, integrated in the second year of the Master's Degree in Teaching Physical Education in Basic and Secondary Education at the Faculty of Sport of the University of Porto. The Supervised Teaching Practice took place at Escola Secundária de Barcelos with a 12th-grade class characterized by significant heterogeneity regarding motor skills, motivational profiles, and learning rhythms. Throughout the internship, several pedagogical challenges were faced, requiring reflection, adaptation, and informed decision-making. With the support of the University Supervisor and the Cooperating Teacher, it was possible to develop competencies related to planning, classroom management, instruction, feedback, and assessment, as well as to actively participate in school life and the educational community. Reflective practice emerged as the central axis of the entire process, being understood as an essential condition for the progressive construction of a more conscious, critical, and intentional professional teaching identity. The report is organized around three professional performance dimensions: organization and management of teaching, participation in school and community, and professional development, the latter integrating an action-research study. These dimensions are articulated within a coherent narrative that reflects the journey of someone who, throughout the year, learned to inhabit the teaching profession with increasing awareness, responsibility, and commitment. The internship led to the conclusion that teaching is, above all, a relational and ethical act, in which systematic reflection on practice constitutes the primary driver of professional development and the progressive construction of a conscious and committed teaching identity.