Influence of the teacher's guide in the construction of the immune system model and its application in decision making

This work analyzes the construction of the immune system model by students beginning with several contextualized situations stated after reading a socioscientific controversy about vaccination, and its transference to other contexts. It is studied how the teacher's guiding has influence in the construction of the model. Besides, the argumentative competence while making decisions related to the model is investigated. The written productions and the oral discussions among elementary pre-service teachers during two different years were compared. The results show higher level in the model constructed and transferred the second year, which could be attributed to the changes in activities and in actions taken by the teachers. The argumentative competence improves both years, differences depending on the decision makings being personal or social are found and discussed.