A convivência na aprendizagem baseada em problemas no contexto da educação superior

Abstract

Learning to live together has been pointed out as one of the most important pillars of the educational process and one of the fundamental challenges for Education in the 21st century (DELORS, 1996). As learning to live together involves developing the recognition and understanding of others, the perception of the interdependencies among the individuals in the accomplishment of projects, as well as learning to manage moments of crisis, the Education presents itself as the tool to accomplish this task. However, content and subject-based teacher-centered approaches that value individualistic learning and result in the denial of others and the refusal to share still prevail in the educational context, compromising the formation of professionals able to act in solving the problems of society with the necessary care in the relations between human beings. The challenge of educational institutions is therefore to prepare students to live with diversity in the perspective of a democratic and inclusive society. To achieve this goal, 'learning how to cooperate' is one of the main competences to be promoted in these environments. In this scenario, Problem Based Learning (PBL) is presented as a methodological alternative that, based on cooperative learning, favors interaction experiences with characteristics that contribute to the construction of a more democratic and inclusive educational environment. This thesis aims to analyze the perceptions of university students who use PBL on the advances it provides for the experience of living together in these learning environments. In order to reach the proposed objective, the research had the elaboration of a theoretical reference as its first step in order to discuss the main challenges and demands of Higher Education for this century, living together in learning environments and the PBL approach, as well as cooperative learning. Living together in the educational context was discussed from Fierro Evans (2008, 2010, 2013). Barrows (1980, 1986, 1989, 1996), Barret and Moore (2005, 2011) stand out in the construction of the theoretical reference on PBL. Cooperative learning, an element that characterizes PBL, was discussed from Morton Deutsch (1949, 1955, 1958, 1962, 1991), with emphasis also on Johnson and Johnson (1987, 1989, 1998, 2003, 2009, 2013). As a second step, a field research was performed using the focal group technique with seventy-one students from three Higher Education Institutions that use PBL. The Content Analysis (BARDIN, 2002) method was used to analyze the participants' speeches in order to capture the message conveyed by the students, as well as to explore the implicit content in their responses. This analysis generated six categories that could express the advances provided by PBL for the experience of living together in those learning environments. The set of categories produced allowed us to suggest that the advances provided by the PBL approach would enable the construction of a more democratic and inclusive educational environment. The PBL would therefore be a way to learn to live in university and a step forward towards the formation of professionals able to act in solving the problems of society with the necessary care in the relations between human beings.