The expression “new normal” is among the most used in social media and the traditional press to highlight the adaptation to the reality faced in Brazil and in the world in the face of the covid-19 pandemic. The Dean of People Management at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte is connected with the current scenario, which requires the social distance recommended by Brazilian and international health agencies and, in this context, the need to implement emergency remote education.
Following the guidelines of the Higher Administration of the educational institution that, through Resolution No. 023/2020-CONSEPE, regulated the exceptional supplementary school period, from 06/15/2020 to 07/29/2020, PROGESP / UFRN will promote the “ Didactic Mediation Course with the aid of educational technologies ”, aimed at teachers who work in face-to-face teaching at the University. These actions will serve for the supplementary semester registered in the Academic Activities Management System as “2020.5”.
According to the Pro-Dean of People Management at UFRN, Mirian Dantas dos Santos, the main objective of this qualification is to promote the development of skills related to the use of technological tools in the teaching-learning process. Also according to the Pro-Rector, this qualification will enable the faculty to create, organize and develop their academic activities through technological platforms.
Partnership with SEDIS
According to UFRN’s Secretary of Distance Education, Carmem Rêgo, the SEDIS team collaborated with the selection of content and the development of educational modules that will be made available to teachers through PROGESP’s Virtual Learning Environment (AVAProgesp), also created with the support of the Secretariat staff.
The expectation is to bring together in the activities all professors of UFRN classroom teaching. Those interested can already register on the portal <www.sigrh.ufrn.br> until next Monday (22), when a web lecture will be held to mark the inaugural class of the course. The Secretary of Distance Education at UFRN will be the mediator of this activity that will have the participation of the Dean of the University, José Daniel Diniz Melo, and Professor Eloiza Oliveira, from the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), as a speaker.
Web lecture broadcast
The web lecture that will start the course is scheduled to start at 4 pm, on June 22, 2020, and will be transmitted through the SEDIS Channel on YouTube. The intention is to allow access, only in that first moment, to all those interested in the themes that will be discussed throughout the modules. During the qualification, only those who are logged in to AVAProgesp will participate in synchronous and asynchronous activities.
Anxious for the moment to share experiences, Professor Eloiza Oliveira, who is Director of the Multidisciplinary Institute for Human Training with Technologies (IFHT) at UERJ, declared that “didactic mediation with the use of technologies can be, in addition to transposing a of the challenges brought about by the covid-19 pandemic, a precious opportunity for innovation and discoveries in the universe of Education in Brazil and contribution to the improvement of teaching and learning in our country ”.
The Secretariat of Distance Education (SEDIS) and the Dean of Student Affairs (PROAE), both from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN), launched this Wednesday (10), the Call for Applications for Aid of Digital Inclusion, aimed at students enrolled in an exceptional supplementary period of distance courses at UFRN.
The Digital Inclusion Aid will be granted in a single installment, in the amount of R $ 150.00 (one hundred and fifty reais), to students enrolled in the exceptional supplementary period of distance learning courses and its main purpose is to contribute to the acquisition of data packages Internet access, in order to guarantee full participation in the academic activities in which these students enrolled.
Selective process
The aid will be financed with resources from the Open University of Brazil Program (UAB), and, for this reason, it is exclusively for active students of undergraduate courses in distance learning. The selection process will take place in two stages: in the first, students enrolled in curriculum components will be able to enroll, and in the second, students enrolled in activities that do not form classes.
To receive the Digital Inclusion Aid, the interested party must be a student in a situation of social vulnerability and identified as “priority” for attending student assistance in the UFRN’s Cadastro Único. In addition, you must be enrolled in disciplinary components and / or in activities that do not form classes in the supplementary period defined by Resolution No. 023/2020 – CONSEPE.
More details about the selection process, as well as information about the schedule, are available in the Public Notice.
The Secretariat of Distance Education of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte prepared two notebooks with guidelines for carrying out activities based on remote teaching in an emergency. The first addresses a design proposal for the organization of classes. The second provides basic guidelines for the preparation of the lesson plan. This material is part of a set of publications that will support a series of actions adopted by UFRN, in view of the suspension of classes due to the covid-19 pandemic.
On June 1, the Teaching, Research and Extension Council (Consepe) of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN) approved resolution 023, which regulates the offer of remote activities for undergraduate, graduate and graduate students. basic, technical and technological education, on an exceptional basis. This is a pilot project for remote education and will be offered in a non-mandatory manner to students and teachers.
In addition, the Exceptional Supplementary Academic Period (2020.3) was created for face-to-face undergraduate courses. For distance undergraduate courses, the use of the Mandacaru Academic virtual learning environment is maintained, without the need to adhere to remote education. In both cases, the 2020 calendar. 1 will remain suspended.
The Pedagogical Coordinator of Distance Education at UFRN, Lilian Zaros, explains that distance education students can enroll in up to 180 hours of curricular components and in the so-called activities that do not form classes. Lilian Zaros also stresses that communication with EaD students continues through the page of the Pedagogical Coordination and the Coordinators of distance education courses found within the virtual learning environment.
Remote education and distance education
In addition to the Pedagogical Coordinator of Distance Education at UFRN, the preparation of the notebooks had the collaboration and coordination of UFRN’s Distance Education Secretary, Carmem Rêgo, UFRN’s Assistant Secretary for Distance Education, Ione Morais, and the Pole Coordinator of Face-to-face support from Caicó, Tânia Cristina Meira. The teachers’ expertise in distance learning was fundamental for the production of these contents.
According to UFRN’s Distance Education Secretary, Carmem Rêgo, this is a model that is also based on technological tools, but unlike the distance learning modality, remote classes and activities are applied on time. In this context, this is a quick and accessible solution for many institutions that have face-to-face courses, clarified Professor Carmem Rêgo.
Formative itinerary
According to Ione Morais, Assistant Secretary of Distance Education at UFRN, the itinerary presented in the material reveals possibilities for the teacher’s action in the process of planning and systematizing the lesson plan, considering the disposition of the contents, the formulation of objectives, the definition of methodological strategies, the identification of learning supports and other characteristics.
For professor Tânia Cristina Meira, Coordinator of the On-campus Support Pole in Caicó, the didactic application of this remote education proposal should go beyond the emergency period and will allow the expansion of students’ contact with digital tools and will boost, in the face-to-face teachers, the development of professional skills associated with teaching that are already dominated by teachers.
What is the contribution of the study of history during the Covid-19 pandemic? Over the past three weeks, more than 100 people have been virtually connected to collectively build the answer to this and other questions. The event called “Teaching History in Times of Pandemic” was an action promoted by the Professional Master’s Course in Teaching History (ProfHistória / UFRN).
According to Francisco Santiago Júnior, Coordinator of the Post-Graduate Program in History Teaching at UFRN, the Master’s Course is aimed at teachers of elementary and high school. And, in this period of pandemic, with the removal of students and teachers from the classrooms, it was necessary to create technological strategies in order to prepare teachers for this new reality.
Teaching History and Covid-19
Francisco Santiago Júnior clarifies that the history teacher must imagine solutions on how to bring his activities back to a teaching modality that takes into account digital resources, but he must also be aware of the fact that the pandemic is a local / regional / national social experience / international shared with their students and family.
In this scenario, he highlights that the teacher is a witness to the pandemic and must imagine the ways to organize his testimony, that of his students and the legacy that this global historical fact will leave between us. Still according to Santiago Júnior, the teaching of history must also work with ways of archiving materials from the present, produced on this social experience, so that they become historical sources in the future.
Technological mediation in education
The event that discussed these themes was held in the Virtual Learning Environment of the Dean of Extension of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN), AVAProex, and confirmed the importance of technological mediation in the teaching and learning process, in the face of a context of social distance guided by health agencies in Brazil and worldwide.
For Santiago Júnior, technological mediation allows maintaining contact in a situation of isolation, but also building learning solutions to work in the mode of remote and distance education. And he adds: “Information Technologies are therefore essential to reestablish teaching, taking into account the possibilities for students to access digital tools and the Internet”.
The Coordinator of the Graduate Program in History Teaching at UFRN concludes that it is necessary to observe the diverse social realities of these students. With the support of universities, education departments, schools, teachers and families, the school space is reconfigured and integrated with digital communication tools and, during the COVID-19 pandemic, this is essential: the family and the home as environments for learning with the global integration promoted by the internet.
