3. Research methodology
3.1. Participants and context
TLS focused on problem-solving were drafted in a partially subsidised private school in the city of Viña del Mar,
Chile. In this context, a group of researchers from four disciplines (Biology, Physics, Geography and Chemistry)
worked in a logic of participative observation with the school's teaching team in the following subjects: Biology,
Physics, History, Geography and Social Sciences, Mathematics and Philosophy. They were all secondary school
teachers, with pupils aged between 14 and 18, from a middle to low socio-economic background. The research
process was supported by a group of Science-pedagogy and Geography university students, and by the school
directors.
3.2. Focus and design
The focus of our work was interpretative. This research assumes that the knowledge gained from teachers'
contributions and what we can learn from them is epistemologically valid. Likewise this knowledge guides teacher
training and/or improvements in educational practices, and is more relevant when illuminated by critical reflection
and self-reflection (Imbernón, 2002). The strategy used was a Professional Circle for Reflection on Teaching, which
favours collaboration and dialogue concerning beliefs in teaching, questioning of one another's beliefs by
participants, argumentation, reflection, construction and consensus of a collective agreement, and taking teaching
decisions. The work was divided into four phases: 1) Formation of the team and Curricular Mapping, 2) Design of
TLS, 3) Implementation of TLS, 4) Monitoring and Evaluation. The TLS developed were validated by experts, by
application in the classroom, with data from the pupils and against the national curriculum.
3.3. Curricular mapping
A curricular map is a graphic representation of one or more curricular disciplines to enable them to be organized
and their contents-learning distinguished. Curricular maps show the general structure of a subject, allowing a
general overview of the distribution of the elements of which it is composed, and the relations between them. They