A prototipagem no viés do STS: experimentação no contexto educacional

Abstract

Today's world is mutable, generating changes in all fields. However, education encounters difficulties, specifically at school, recurrently using the traditional teaching model created in the Industrial Revolution. Despite notable efforts in education, as the active methodology, there is still uncertainty about how to transform this situation. One area that can contribute to the complexity of this is design due to its inventive and strategic capacity, which from an ontological perspective, is concerned with the relationship between human beings and the world. In its inventive processes is prototyping, a design activity that allows the generation of knowledge. It is proposed to rethink the understanding of prototyping from the Science and Technology Studies (STS). In the view of STS, the prototype is a recursive exploratory technology, a meeting place between the immaterial and the material, where people create themselves, producing their own knowledge. In this understanding, it seems possible to link it to education. Thus, the objective of this research is to identify the potential of prototyping in the perspective of STS in children's learning. To address it, it was proposed to design a prototyping practice in the perspective of the STS; focused to be experienced by 8 children, between 5 and 9 years old. The methodological strategy was through action-research divided into 3 cycles, with permanent collaboration of specialists to support the design and monitoring of dynamics. The children experienced the practice, and based on their experiences, we sought to modify and improve the dynamics. The results taken to a level of abstraction are interpreted and discussed. Thus, it is argued that: (i) 7 concepts were evidenced in the dynamics of the STS perspective on prototyping, (ii) play is an activity inherent to the proposed prototyping, (iii) technical adaptations must be made so that the practice be included in the school, (iv) 11 peculiar skills have been developed, (v) despite the apparent similarity, the active methodology and the proposed practice are different, (vi) strategic design has guided the design of the practice, and (vii) there has been a speculative environment for creating scenarios and prototypes.