COMPUTATIONAL THINKING IN THE TRAINING OF YOUTH AND ADULT EDUCATION TEACHERS
Computational Thinking. Teacher Training. Youth and Adult Education.
Computational Thinking has been recommended to be applied in many students and teachers trainings. It contributes to the development of critical learning, among other skills. However, there are still few works that report activities in Youth and Adult Education related to this theme. The gap widens when the focus is on training teachers who work in this educational field. Based on these issues, the following research question arises: Is it possible to settle a relationship between the pillars of Computational Thinking and Paulo Freire's literacy method in the training of teachers in Youth and Adult Education? Thus, the general objective is to analyze the relationship between the pillars of Computational Thinking and Paulo Freire's method. It aims to contribute to the process of training teachers in Youth and Adult Education. It seeks specifically to: i) analyze the insertion of Computational Thinking in the process of training teachers at EJA; ii) assess the teaching materials used by EJA teachers, aiming to provide endowments for the development of Computational Thinking; iii) identify the training specificities related to the EJA audience for defining didactic-pedagogical parameters of the Paulo Freire method that can be associated with Computational Thinking; and iv) create a pedagogical guide aimed at training EJA teachers to assist in the literacy process of young people and adults with computational thinking. In the methodological scope, this research fits in the area of Human Sciences, having an interdisciplinary character between the areas of Computing and Education. As far as its nature is concerned, it follows a qualitative approach. As for its objectives, it is classified as an explanatory research. Regarding technical procedures, it is characterized as a field study. The questionnaire was used as data collection instrument. The adopted analysis technique was the descriptive statistics. To carry out these steps, training was developed with teachers who work in EJA at the Antônio de Azevedo State School, in the city of Jardim do Seridó, in Rio Grande do Norte. All training was carried out using Google Education tools. As a result, it was identified: when inserting Computational Thinking in EJA, it is necessary to deconstruct its myth to strengthen its use with EJA; the materials used by EJA teachers are the same ones used by them in regular education; disseminating channels where it is possible to obtain resources and sources to produce activities for EJA is healthy to work with the Paulo Freire method integrated to Computational Thinking; a Computational Thinking Guide was prepared by the participating teachers with a view to sharing knowledge during the course with other teachers who also work at this level of basic education in Brazil. The training was validated by the participants and proved to be relevant to be inserted in larger formations in the context of EJA.