Higher education in Brazil has widened itself and teaching profession has become an
extremely attractive activity. Postgraduate courses and professional experience as
precondition for teaching have been historically valued. Formation on a pedagogical area for
higher education professors is pointed out as a need for the establishment of a good education
process. It is the aim of this research: to understand the conceptions of professors about their
pedagogical practice. It circles around a qualitative study carried out at a college in the
countryside of the state of Ceará. 10 bachelor professor on the field of health and active as
instructor in their respective graduation course. The gathering of data was made based on an
interview with semi-structured script and after that a Minayo’s thematic analysis was made to
deal with the collected data. As a result it was found, of first category, a profile of young
instructors at the average age of 39.1 years old, being most of them females. From the
instructor who are studying, 90%, have a fulfilled or in-progress stricto sensu formation. The
second category found deals with the comprehension about the “teaching being” from the
perspective of the analyzed subjects. It was found that the teaching profession is understood
as the teaching act itself, being it sometimes conceptualized as a transmission or passage of
knowledge. The instructor’s identity is marked by a political and social character of changing
realities and impacting citizenship. Instructors have brought up the idea of pride and privilege
of being university professors in theirs speech and the understanding of the teaching career as
a delightful exercise and a professional accomplishment. The third category talks about a
pedagogical practice, being it, for many times, intuitive and little based on theoretical
assumptions in the field of education. It was also found that the teaching career is a process in
the make and that it happens through the interaction of the agents involved. The fourth
category came with the teaching challenges which surrounds the hindrances of the
undergraduate related to the content of basic education and the resistance that they have in
relation to the analysis of the professor’s unpreparedness concerning methodologies, to the
evaluative process and teaching techniques. The non-formation in the field of education
reflects on inherent hardships in the process of teaching and mediating the students’ learning
as well as evaluate their apprenticeship. The weight of the modern world on the teaching
process was too appointed as a challenge, for it brings technology questions and virtual
realities, alongside with the professor’s overload of work, culminating in their lack of time.
The last category found regards the professor’s trajectory, which is sometimes initiated during
undergraduate studies, when they realize the interest for the instruction career, during
postgraduate education or even during the practice of education in the area of health exercised
on basic care or preceptor activity. Other ones, although not being interested in the teaching
career, were given the professional opportunity when possible. It aims to the need of a
pedagogical shaping for professors in courses in the field of health in order to find subsidies
towards an academic formation that answers the necessities of the present world.
Keywords: Higher Education. Faculty. Teaching.
