As múltiplas faces da evasão na educação superior a distância: a experiência do curso de tecnologia em gestão ambiental do IFRN em dois pólos de apoio presencial

This research presents a reflection on the dropout rates in higher education courses available through distance education in a context marked by deep changes in various spheres of society and by the uncontrolled growth of this educational method. For this, the object of analysis is related to the reality of students of Technology in Environmental Management offered by the Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia, Rio Grande do Norte (RN), Brazil, through the distance education in presence support poles located in Mossoró (RN) and Martins (RN). In this field research development several strategies of data collection are used, such as participant observation of reality; analysis of documents related to distance education and to the classes in Technology in Environmental Management; questionnaires answered by students who dropped the course. The results of such research enable us to say that the dropout rates in distance higher education is mainly referred to the consequences of a combination of aspects involved in the course development, personal difficulties faced by students during the period they attend the lessons and elements inherent in the context in which the course and students are inserted. Nevertheless there are specific situations in which the student may drop the program due to the influence of a single aspect, whether it is inherent in the development of the course, a personal situation, or even a factor determined by the context in which the course or the student belongs to

A representação social de educação tecnológica de docentes da Rede Federal de Educação Profissional e Tecnológica: CEFETs do Rio Grande do Norte

The aim of this study was to investigate the social representation of technological education teachers at the Federal Technological Education Network. The survey was conducted from 2007 to 2010, and the respondents were 275 teachers, 135 of the Federal Center for Technological Education (CEFET in portuguese) in the state of Amazonas, in Manaus unit headquarters; 140 of the CEFET in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, a unit based in Natal. We adopt the concept of technological education as the top level of professional education, that is to say, the undergraduate programs of short duration called technological courses. The Federal Technological Education Network gathers hundreds of related institutions, coordinated and supervised by the Office of Vocational and Technological Education of the Ministry of Education. Although many of these institutions offer courses in technology education, no research addressing this subject from the perspective of Social Representations Theory (SRT) was found in the literature. We seek to unravel the social representation of technological education of the teachers by adopting the procedural approach of SRT. This is a qualitative approach, focusing on significant aspects of the representative activity and the formation mechanisms of the representation. Therefore, we search the socio-genesis of the representation in the articulations between discourses, social institutions and practices. We initiated the research through applying critical reading and an analytical perspective on the historical and regulatory documents of technological education in Brazil, from the early twentieth century to the present day. We adopt the Procedure for Multiple Classifications (PMC) from the Free Words Association Technique (FWAT) to access the elements of representational content. For the analysis of the data obtained with FWAT and selection of major words / phrases pertinent to the semantic field of education technology, we used Hamlet II software. For the data analysis of PMC and Free Classification (FC) we used the SPSS ® (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) version 17.0 and used the method of multidimensional scaling - Multidimensional scaling - (MDS). The output from the central MDS takes the form of a set of scatterplots - "perceptual maps" - of which the points are the elements of the representational content. For the FC data analysis we used the Scalogram Multidimensional Analysis (SMA) - which makes use of the original data in its raw form and allows categorical data to be interpreted in the map as measures of (di)similarity. In order to help with the understanding of the settings of the perceptual maps of FC, we used the Content Analysis of the discourse fragments of the teachers interviewed. The results confirm our initial hypothesis regarding the presence of a single plot among the socio-cognitive study subjects, which is the basis for a social representation of technological education in line with the historic assumption of the dichotomy between mental and manual labor. In spite of the three merging representational elements of the representational content, the perceptual maps compiled from the MSA statistics corroborates the dichotomy, with the exception of the map relating to the subgroup of teachers belonging to the humanities

Saberes necessários para a docência na educação de jovens e adultos

The present thesis, entitled Knowledge for teaching: reflecting over the Youth and Adult Education, mainly considered common aspects concerning teachers knowledge and youth and adult education. It aimed to analyze, in partnership with its participants, the knowledge which is requested for teaching youth and adults. It focused on the following question: What teaching knowledge is necessary for the professionals who work during the first grades of elementary school with the youth and adults? The research took place in a school named Escola Municipal São Lucas, located in the city of Vitória da Conquista, state of Bahia, having as reference the discourses of four participants involved in the experience of research-formation. The collaborative approach, based on qualitative principles, was the adopted theoricalmethodological way, considering four actions: describing, informing, confronting and reconstructing. Collective interviews, study and reflection sessions, literacy practice observations, documental analysis and notes regarding field work were procedures adopted throughout the research. In order to analyze and organize data, we were supported by the discourse analysis, by Bakhtin (1997), specifically about the discussions around the ideas of theme and signification, which are concepts related to processual and dialectical analysis. The results and conclusions of the research make it possible to affirm that pedagogical practices, professional experiences, dialogues with other individuals and knowledge acquired at the university and at other learning environments are the participants main knowledge sources. When it comes to the local educational politics, it is observed contradiction between the participants desires regarding the school pedagogical routines and the proposals of the local government in relation to education. From our point of view, the knowledge identified and analyzed in this thesis demands the development of a diligent, technical, scientific and politically planned formative process (initial and continued), which requires fundamental public investments to recreate the educational politics and, consequently, the pedagogical experiences within the schools, contributing to the Youth and Adult Education professionalization process

A experiência do corpo na dança butô: indicadores para pensar a educação

Neste artigo pretende-se refletir, apoiado em alguns ensaios de Merleau-Ponty e com base na fenomenologia, acerca do corpo e das narrativas e saberes que nele se anunciam na dança butô — modalidade que combina dança e teatro, criada no Japão na década de 1950. De modo geral, o corpo foi compreendido como elemento acessório no processo educativo, e essa compreensão ainda é predominante no contexto atual. Nossa reflexão tenta apontar outros caminhos de entendimento do corpo na educação, a partir de uma atitude que busca superar o instrumentalismo e ampliar as referências educativas, ao considerar a fenomenologia do corpo, e sua relação com o conhecimento sensível, como aquela capaz de amplificar a textura corpórea dos processos de conhecimento. Considerando a experiência do corpo na dança butô, apresentamos indicadores para pensar a educação, relacionados à experiência estética. Dentre eles destacamos: a plasticidade do corpo, a sua produção incessante de ressignificações, a sua abertura à inovação, a sua condição mutante, a sua ruptura com a mecanização gestual, a sua não dissociação entre homem e mundo, pensamento e sentimento. Todos esses aspectos que reúnem o saber recursivo, integrativo e criativo do corpo, são indicadores para pensarmos na educação, por tratar-se de uma nova possibilidade de leitura do real, a partir da linguagem do gesto, em que dialogam saberes e práticas inscritos na experiência corporal