O jogo de RPG como ferramenta auxiliar de aprendizagem na disciplina de Ciências

ON reflecting the traditional teaching approach, characterized by non-dynamic and descriptive methods that still persists in schools at the present time, associated to social living enrichment has motivated the search for new techniques to stimulate students in the process of teaching, such as roleplaying games, known as RPG, already being used in various school disciplines. Considering the amount of themes in general sciences and in biology, in particular that could be explored through RPG our purpose was to develop a game to be used as a learning complementary tool. PANGÉIA, the game we developed, was based on the GURPS system and to be placed at the geological Eras of the earth. The objective of the game was playing a character that represented an animal belonging to a Class of Vertebrates, and making it surviving and reproducing during risky situations presented in the game. These situations were narratives by the Master about challenges that the character would face, which should be solved using the dices. Along the narrative, the Master introduced concepts and informations about the subject being studied. To evaluating how the game worked out, we solicited 11 volunteers, from two different schools in Natal, to play PANGÉIA. Before starting the game, and without knowing the final objectives of our project, the volunteers answered a general questionnaire to let us know their level of knowledge, which was also answered after playing the game. The comparison of the volunteers answers before and after playing the game suggests that this activity influenced them. Also, based on this test, we identified critical aspects to be modified in PANGÉIA, specially a stronger relation between both the questionnaire and the game placement with the narrative of the master. In order to have PANGÉIA used as a complementary learning tool, a teachers handbook has to be written, including rules concerning the format of game application. Nonetheless, based on this pilot study, we conclude that topics on sciences and biology can be easily adjusted to RPG format, and its flexibility provides multiple combinations that can be used to help learning the more difficult topics to be taught in a class

Ensino e aprendizagem de violão na UFRN

The instrumental teaching in Brazil has been more widely studied by music education in the last years, becoming a significative scientific investigation field. This work is focusing on analysis of the instrument teaching reality, considering more specifically the guitar teaching. In a timely manner, approaches the reality of the guitar teaching from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte – UFRN), considering specific instrument courses in this institution. Thus, the present work was guided by the aim of understanding conceptions, contents and didactic and methodological perspectives that constitute the teaching and learning of the guitar at UFRN. To reach this main aim, we sought to verify, in general: 1) the theoretical, methodological and content perspectives that underlie guitar formation in the music courses of the UFRN; 2) the functions and the aims of the guitar disciplines in the Courses; 3) the profile of the guitar disciplines' professors; 4) the demands of the subjects directly involved in these proposals of musical education; and, 5) the conceptions about formation practices and teaching methodologies that characterize the docent action. In accordance with the aims, the methodological guidance was based on the qualitative paradigm. Thus, data collection procedures involved were: bibliographical and documentary research and interviews with three professors who taught in guitar disciplines during the semester of 2014.1 on the mentioned courses. Then, these data were systematically organized and analyzed in line with the research characteristics presented here. The results of the research evidenced the concepts, contents and didactic and methodological perspectives in the context of teaching and learning guitar in the studied empirical field. In this context, we perceive a relation between the demands of teaching and learning tool in the study field and the ones evidenced in the literature. The results demonstrated that the professors’ professional tragetory is associated with their influences from the initial musical formation and their guitar learning since they related conceptions that reflected aspects formation, sometimes converging sometimes divergente. The contentes, methodologies and general aspects are made based on parameters that demonstrate alignment with the perspectives of guitar teaching and learning in the contemporary world to the instrumental player formation. Thus, the study gave a broader diagnosis about the guitar teaching reality, demonstrating the diferences and the singularities between the Technical Course and the Course of Bachelor in Music at UFRN. Thereby, this study provides importante contribution to music education, mainly, through its reflections about the guitar pedagogy.

Utilização de mapas conceituais como ferramenta de ensino para o desenvolvimento do raciocínio clínico no curso de medicina da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte

BACKGROUND: Among the wide range of skills displayed by a medical doctor is undoubtedly the need to use cohesive and well grounded clinical reasoning in order for medical care to be indeed effective. It is in this respect that conceptual maps emerge; these are a methodological innovation that allows a comprehensive, panoramic and associative outlook of theoretical content, making it more practical and applicable to the reality of clinical observation. Promoting learning, learning resources and a feedback system between professor and students, as well as assessing and monitoring the performance of students during their academic training, are the main features of this tool. OBJETIVE: Assess the use of conceptual maps as a teaching-learning tool in the training of undergraduate medical students at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN). METHODOLOGY: Interventional, randomized, cross-sectional study conducted with students from the 3rd and 5th periods of the medical course at UFRN, during the second semester of 2014, totaling 86 participants, divided into two groups: GI (intervention – clinical case resolution with a conceptual map) and GII (control – clinical case resolution without a conceptual map) in each period. RESULTS: The use of conceptual maps to teach liver failure syndrome resulted in a statistically significant cognitive gain for G1 students from the 5th period (GI: 6.8±1.6 and 8.0±1.5, p = 0.024; GII: 7.2±2.1 and 8.0±1.7, p = 0.125, pre and post-intermediate means, respectively), a result not observed in the period 3rd (GI: 7.7±1.3 and 8.0±1.4, p = 0.501; GII: 6.7±1.8 and 7.8±1.8; p=0.068, pre and post-intermediate means, respectively). Students in the 3 rd period gave better responses to the first clinical case, with a larger number of suitable concepts and crosslinks, when they used conceptual maps (GI: 91.3±13.15 and GII: 64.84±22.84, p=0,002). Students in the 5th period exhibited better clinical reasoning and more complete responses using the tool (p=0,01). Most of the students were not aware of the tool (53.8% from the 3rd period and 65.3% from the 5th period). Among those who knew about conceptual maps, most (59.3%) had only used them during high school, 14.8% had never used them and only seven students (25.9%) used them during the medical course. Analysis of open responses, obtained in process assessment showed clear satisfaction and enthusiasm with learning about the new tool, and frequent suggestions to use it at other moments in the course. Assessment of learning profile, using the VARK questionnaire, showed that most students from both periods exhibited a multimodal style. CONCLUSION: Despite their scant knowledge regarding the tool, good acceptability and understanding was observed in the study participants. The conceptual maps allowed cognitive gains, better responses and clinical reasoning in teaching liver failure syndrome to 5th period students.

ISE-SPL: Uma abordagem baseada em linha de produtos de software aplicada à geração automática de sistemas para educação médica na plataforma E-learning

E-learning, which refers to the use of Internet-related technologies to improve knowledge and learning, has emerged as a complementary form of education, bringing advantages such as increased accessibility to information, personalized learning, democratization of education and ease of update, distribution and standardization of the content. In this sense, this paper aims to develop a tool, named ISE-SPL, whose purpose is the automatic generation of E-learning systems for medical education, making use of concepts of Software Product Lines. It consists of an innovative methodology for medical education that aims to assist professors of healthcare in their teaching through the use of educational technologies, all based on computing applied to healthcare (Informatics in Health). The tests performed to validate the ISE-SPL were divided into two stages: the first was made by using a software analysis tool similar to ISE-SPL, called SPLOT and the second was performed through usability questionnaires to healthcare professors who used ISESPL. Both tests showed positive results, proving it to be an efficient tool for generation of E-learning software and useful for professors in healthcare

A integração do tutorial interativo TryLogic via IMS Learning Tools Interoperability: construindo uma infraestrutura para o ensino de Lógica através de estratégias de demonstração e refutação

Logic courses represent a pedagogical challenge and the recorded number of cases of failures and of discontinuity in them is often high. Amont other difficulties, students face a cognitive overload to understand logical concepts in a relevant way. On that track, computational tools for learning are resources that help both in alleviating the cognitive overload scenarios and in allowing for the practical experimenting with theoretical concepts. The present study proposes an interactive tutorial, namely the TryLogic, aimed at teaching to solve logical conjectures either by proofs or refutations. The tool was developed from the architecture of the tool TryOcaml, through support of the communication of the web interface ProofWeb in accessing the proof assistant Coq. The goals of TryLogic are: (1) presenting a set of lessons for applying heuristic strategies in solving problems set in Propositional Logic; (2) stepwise organizing the exposition of concepts related to Natural Deduction and to Propositional Semantics in sequential steps; (3) providing interactive tasks to the students. The present study also aims at: presenting our implementation of a formal system for refutation; describing the integration of our infrastructure with the Virtual Learning Environment Moodle through the IMS Learning Tools Interoperability specification; presenting the Conjecture Generator that works for the tasks involving proving and refuting; and, finally to evaluate the learning experience of Logic students through the application of the conjecture solving task associated to the use of the TryLogic