Contribuições da Abordagem STEAM e das metodologias ativas na integração de diferentes áreas do saber no ensino médio e tecnológico

Abstract

Traditional teaching has been responsible for the learning of concepts for different generations of students, buts it ends up being limited for the 21st century reality, for, beyond the concepts, skills are needed to act in an ever-changing scenario. On this perspective, the STEAM (acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) is an educational approach that proposes the intentional integration among subjects, capable of orienting the construction of projects in the context of technical schools. The active methodologies are resources able to promote the participation of students in the learning process and skills development. The elaboration of VM1 mechatronic race cars gathers a set of practical activities related to STEAM areas, with proper complexity for high school students. The present research had as goal to analyze the contributions of the STEAM approach and the active methodologies for the integration of different areas of knowledge on the development of projects that promote an improvement on teaching and learning at IFRN - Caicó Campus. For that purpose, it was established a formation course containing 12 stages, that approached the theoretical and practical aspects about the STEAM, the active methodologies and STEAM project Tecno Trash, containing 10 stages, that approached the thematic about the electronic garbage in collaboration with Project Based Learning. In both actions previously mentioned, it was developed activities related to VM1 prototypes elaboration. The target audience was consisted of 12 servers (teachers and technicians) and of 20 first-grade students of the Federal Institute of Rio Grande do Norte (IFRN) - Campus Caicó. It was an exploratory study, of qualitative character, of research-action kind. As instrument for data collection, two questionnaires of both multiple-choice and subjective answers were used, recordings (audio and video) and the Planning, Doing and Communication tool (PFC), with the results from Bardin content analysis theory. The formation results show that the participants acquired knowledges about the active methodologies, their contributions to the students' learning, and about the STEAM, as well as the integration capacity and knowledge exchange during VM1 prototype development. The results of the project revealed that the elaboration of VM1 prototypes, the choice of taking part of a local science event and the works in groups were relevant to the students' learning and for the development of skills, with the emphasis of creativity and collaboration. In summary, the STEAM approach and the active methodologies contributed for the integration among professionals of different areas (Chemistry, Physics, Electronics and Biology) and among students in different courses (Textile, Clothing, Electrotechnics and Computing for the Internet), as well as for the project construction, that promoted learnings and skill development for the 21st century.