Utilização de atividades práticas de microbiologia no ensino médio: avaliação discente e impacto no processo ensino-aprendizagem

Abstract

Microbiology is a branch of Biology that studies viruses, protozoans, unicellular algae, and fungi. The fungi studied by Microbiology may be unicellular or multi-cellular. The macroscopic beings are the mushrooms-like that are not studied by themicrobiology. Being microscopic, itbrings difficulties to the comprehension of these beings, because most of the schools do not have a proper science lab and microscopes to visualize them. Therefore, the difficulties to understand the microbiological universe need to be overtaken, in search to minimize them. The use of practical activities is of great importance in the Teaching/Learning process and must be considered essential to a more dynamic and attractive teaching, contributing to the school success. In the Microbiology teaching, the practical activities may create the necessary conditions to supply the lack of the school’s equipment and contribute to the creation of the opportunities of comprehension and construction of the scientific knowledge. This paper tried to survey the evaluations of the teachers about the classes and practical activities used as a complementary pedagogical asset in the teaching of Microbiology, looking for ways to improve on the process of acquisition of knowledge and scientific literacy. For so, four themes on Microbiology were selected, each of them developed in two distinct moments: at first the theoretical activities and then developing the practical ones. The theoreticalactivitieswere organized in a didactic sequence that tried to chain the learning together. The students attributed grades to different aspects of the teaching-learning process, using an evaluation instrument of theoretical practices, identical between themselves, just after the execution of the activities.The data were obtained by some compiled information from the SPSS program and the results were submitted to a statistical analysis, using the non-parametric test of Wilcoxon. The results, then, revealed that there were significant differences. The students identified more positive points in the practical classes, pointing them as more pleasantand facilitating to the learning possess, the interaction between the students, the creativity outcrop and the concretization of the abstract ideas. The didactic sequences showed themselves to be important tools in the class organization that are trying to work the investigation and foment the argumentation o the students, besides proportioning opportunities to evaluate the teacher on command, the sequence and form ofpresenting the subjects, enabling changes to improve the 13process and the results achieved. This paper ratified the importance of proportionate a better ambient and one more adequate to the learning, one that involves the student in the context of the subject to be worked and that offers a thinking opportunity, raising questions, interacting in group and debating their opinions.