[Teaching strategies of nursing care: a look on pedagogical trends].

To determine the teaching strategies adequate for the contents and concepts imbricated in care is a challenge for nursing educators. This qualitative, descriptive and exploratory study aimed to know the strategies applied to teach nursing care used by ten nurses, professors of the Nursing Department in a University in the metropolitan area of the city of Porto Alegre, state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The information was collected through the Focal Group technique, from June 2004 to March 2005. The thematic analysis of the data resulted in the category Strategies to Teach Care, with the sub-categories demonstration, exhibition, observation, and discussion. The evidences point to attempts of replacing the traditional content transmission notion, without however, effectively showing another pedagogical tendency. We can conclude that the technical competence is still privileged which leads to a disregard of the learning that aims at the development of a reflexive and critic stance.