Implementação do método de ensino Peer Instruction com o auxílio dos computadores do projeto “UCA” em aulas de Física do Ensino Médio

Abstract

This paper presents results of an exploratory case study which the main objectives were to: evaluate the receptivity of the students regarding the Peer Instruction (PI) method and the use of computers of the UCA project (Brazilian version of the project One Laptop per Child); investigate if the discussion between colleagues promotes the convergence to the correct answer in concept tests, as it has been pointed in literature; and investigate the viability of using the UCA computers as a voting system to the methodology. The study was conducted in a class of 34 students in the third year of a Federal Public High School over an instructional sequence on topics of Electromagnetism. In this study we observed that the discussion among colleagues proved fruitful, allowing the participation of students and leading to the convergence to the correct answer. We conclude that this methodology can be successfully implemented in the context of a High School classroom using the UCAs as a voting system, given the conditions of infrastructure to use them for the duration of a lesson (e.g. charging of the batteries). It should be emphasized that the adoption of PI can be done in a complementary manner to the activities of problem solving, experimental work and/or computer simulation, aimed at teaching.