Line 4
Prototyping of emerging technologies from PLIC/USP. (Meta-presential co-learning spaces.)
Coordinator: Profa. Dra. Roseli de Deus Lopes
Technology has become an essential element that determines what social groups scattered across different parts of the planet are, how they communicate, and how they live. It influences all stages of these processes, from the formation of groups to their functioning and, above all, the strategies they use to address the problems to which they are exposed. As such, its presence is indispensable when discussing the integration of knowledge into basic education and is even more pertinent when associated with the demands brought about by the complex and non-fragmented problems that characterise everyday life in the contemporary world. At the same time, technology cannot be understood as an isolated element, nor as a source from which ready-made solutions spring, nor as a determinant that imposes choices and attitudes on individuals.
In this context, line 4 seeks to understand how technology can be used in the training of teachers and students in order to enhance their development and multiply opportunities for learning and action. Ultimately, it is hoped that those trained in this way will be able to improve and expand the strategies used to address the challenges of the present and the future. By addressing these scenarios and considering the need to transform the curriculum to encompass contemporary challenges, line 4 also connects with lines 5 and 6 of the thematic project.
Associated researchers:
- Prof. Dr. Paulo Blikstein (Columbia University, Teachers College/ EUA)
- Cleber Augusto Pereira (UFMA / IEA / USP)
- Cássia Fernandez (Escola Politecnica / USP)
- Adailton Antônio Galiza Nunes (IEA / USP)
- Adelmo Eloy (Escola Politecnica / USP)
To achieve its objectives, Line 4 draws inspiration from the practical and investigative approach attributed to the historical model of scientific development: identifying problems, raising hypotheses, creating ways to validate, refute or revise these hypotheses, and developing the artefacts and strategies necessary to sustain the process. And the path to achieving this result lies in STEAM education (an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics). It is an educational methodology that proposes an active and interdisciplinary approach to understanding real problems and intervening in the world. The focus of the work remains on the student, who is encouraged and accompanied to work side by side with the teacher, becoming an agent of change responsible for proposing and implementing solutions. Ideally, this way of acting should go beyond school time to address problems faced at all stages of the subjects’ lives. The technological solutions used along the way can be either those already known, which will then be transformed to serve a project, or innovations, conceived and prototyped by the learners as imperfect and incomplete elements, which will be used and adjusted at the same time.
Within the thematic project, the research strategy used by line 4 follows the same logic. The first stage of the work was based on observing the training activities conducted in other lines, in order to understand what the demands would be in interdisciplinary and integrative training and to what extent they could be met through technological solutions. What projects or activities are teachers and students trying to carry out? What demands have arisen? Which of them represent an opportunity to develop innovative solutions? Which existing tools can be adapted for this purpose? One example is the Cosmos course, offered by line 1 of the thematic project in 2024, where there is room for a relevant contribution to the visualisation of the sky in its multiple perspectives. In the active methodologies discipline offered by line 3 in partnership with USP São Carlos, it is possible to expand the use of technological tools that favour remote and asynchronous work. Strategic planning can turn the impossibility of having the entire group in the same environment at the same time into an advantage. To do this, it is necessary to understand the difficulties encountered in the course and convert them into actions to be implemented in the next application of the discipline.
Other relevant research has also been developed by the line and aims to support actions from the perspective of STEAM education by identifying observable, indicative elements that allow teachers to assess whether learning objectives are being achieved by students. They are particularly useful when it comes to identifying the development of skills such as creativity and reflective and investigative autonomy in subjects. The research also investigates an infrastructure model focused on the principle of minimum cost and maximum sharing, which facilitates collaboration and the implementation of workspaces geared towards the use of technology in primary and secondary schools.
Overall, line 4 thus focuses on reconfiguring the understanding that technological solutions will be grafted onto a rigid educational model. Instead, it seeks to understand existing demands in an innovative version of the educational process (which is the core of the research developed by the thematic project) and then identify and present proposals on the contribution that technology can make, reinventing and improving the results obtained.
Keywords: technology, STEAM, creativity, autonomy, prototyping.
Undergraduate and postgraduate students:
- Adelmo Eloy – Doutorado (Escola Politecnica / USP)
- Hadassa Harumi Castelo Onisaki (Escola Politecnica / USP)