O que mudou (se mudou) na docência após a pandemia de COVID-19 em cursos de Licenciatura em Computação de institutos federais

Abstract

This thesis is part of the research line Foundations and Educational Practices. During the COVID-19 pandemic, education had to adapt its activities to social distancing conditions, adopting remote classes and other actions to ensure that students were not harmed and their education was maintained. This context led to changes in schools' pedagogical planning, making it necessary to develop pedagogical activities mediated by digital resources, with the internet being essential in many situations. The locus of the research was undergraduate courses in Computing, offered by Federal Institutes (IFs). The research was based on the hypothesis that the experience during the pandemic period acted as a catalyst for changes in the way teachers use digital resources in their pedagogical activities, influencing both emergency remote teaching and the practices that followed with the gradual return to in-person teaching. The research question is what has changed in teaching after the pandemic in undergraduate computer science courses at Federal Institutes. The general objective was to identify possible changes in the use of digital technologies in pedagogical activities of undergraduate courses in Computing at federal institutes after the pandemic. Participation was voluntary, with the virtual application of a questionnaire prepared in Google Forms, disseminated through invitations sent to the institutional addresses available on the IFs' websites. This is a qualitative and quantitative research. The quantitative analysis was prepared with graphs and comparative tables, seeking to correlate the data from the three research moments (before, during and after the pandemic). The qualitative analysis was developed based on Fontoura's Thematization methodology, considering the descriptive responses compared with the theoretical framework based on Almeida (2018), Batista, Barcelos and Azevedo (2015), Costa (2022), Moran (2015), Pimenta, Prata-Linhares and Melo (2019), Santos and Mercado (2023), Schalch and Melo (2015) among others. E-mails were sent to teachers and course coordinators inviting them to participate in the research. The research results show an intensification in the use of digital technologies in teaching after the pandemic period. There has been an increase in the adoption of Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs), which have become standard resources. Videoconferencing services, cloud storage platforms, and video resources have experienced growth in their use. This expansion suggests that the experience of remote teaching has familiarized teachers with a wider range of digital resources, but it has also demonstrated the potential of these instruments to enrich the teaching-learning process. More than half of the participants reported having reviewed and changed their lesson plans after the remote teaching experience, indicating a reflection on pedagogical practices and a propensity to incorporate digital technologies in a more integrated and intentional way. However, the research also revealed important nuances, although with the increased adoption of technologies, challenges persist related to the available technological infrastructure, the need for ongoing training for the pedagogical use of these resources, and ensuring equitable access to digital resources by students. The research shows that the pandemic period contributed to a change in the way teachers of these courses integrate digital technologies into their teaching.