Condições para a emergência de complexidade em um curso de letras/inglês a distância: do projeto pedagógico ao design instrucional

Abstract

Distance education has been posing challenges to both teachers and students while seeking knowledge through this specific learning mode. Due to the fact that most projects as well as pedagogical practices need to be organized in advance, they tend to bypass the context of application. Without a context, online classrooms bring about more limitations and, consequently, less opportunity for learning. We defended that such projects and pedagogical practices, organized exclusively for online classrooms, must be closely related to the context they are to be applied in order to foster favorable conditions for the emergence of contextualized learning. Thus, on the grounds of the theory of Complexity (MORIN, 2003; PAIVA, 2009), along with the assumptions of Davis and Sumara (2006) about conditions for Complexity emergence in education and the proposal that contextual factors may influence online classrooms by Filatro (2007, 2008), we have researched a distance course of Language and Literature (English) in which online classrooms have been defined as learning environments. The referred course had been projected as a means for enabling adequate professional qualification to in-service teachers who have not had competent knowledge to teach subjects designed to them and had been working in public schools offering basic education for, at least, three years. The goal was to search for the relation between the pedagogical project of the course and its instructional design as well as to identify the most significant contextual factors restricting or favoring the emergence of an environment conductive to learning. The focus was the conditions for contextualized learning emergence, in terms of proposals, pedagogical practices and interactive dynamics which could be seen as evidence either of favorable or restrictive contexts for online learning in the course environment during its first semester. As to the type of research, it was descriptive, qualitative and ethnographic-oriented. Data have been analysed according to ressignification of Davis‟ and Sumara‟s proposal about the conditions for Complexity emergence in educational contexts aligned to Filatro‟s ideas (2007, 2008) on the influence of contextual factors which may favor or restrict teaching and learning processes in online contexts. The analysis has indicated that instructional objectives and environment organization must be (re)adjusted to the students‟ learning needs as soon as they know how the course environment works. It has been detected that the pedagogical process and instructional design of the course had been targeted to a specific and, at some extent, homogeneous audience. However, because it is a distance learning course, prior preparation may have affected the possibility of the system to regulate itself. Also, in face of unexpected diversity of participants, the system has not received feedback to adapt to a new context, which has caused more limitations than opportunities for contextualized learning according to course environment observation. It is possible to conclude that the course, while a system, should be given feedback with information about its participants, including students, teachers and staff involved, which could prevent itself from collapsing. Because of its inflexibility, the course had not been adapted to the context of application, remaining noncontextualized and in accelerated process of entropy.