SCHOOL 4.0

Pedagogical project brings together theory and practical learning in the classroom

Historically, Brazilian students have underperformed in science and mathematics, as revealed by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). In the most recent assessment, Brazil ranked last and below average among the 81 participating countries.

The challenges to improving learning in these areas are many, and Professor Fabiano Fruett, from the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (Feec) at Unicamp, experiences this firsthand. His wife, a former science teacher at a public school, shared daily the difficulty in carrying out experiments that would allow students to see the relationship between the content studied and real life, often due to the lack of structure and equipment.

With this in mind, Fruett and his team developed Escola 4.0, a teaching, research and extension project that aims to awaken, in a less traditional way, the curiosity of elementary and high school students regarding the school curriculum. Using experiments carried out in the classroom, such as an electronic board with multiple functions, it became possible to connect the theory of books with practical applications, and address several topics: the functioning of nature, the functioning of electronic equipment or even the logical reasoning that leads to the development of software.

“The idea is to minimize the chances of failure when carrying out practical experiments in the classroom. Our goal is to provide an enriching experience in the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, known by the acronym [in English] Stem, creating opportunities for young people to awaken and develop essential skills in these disciplines,” explains Fruett.

Stem offers an educational approach that aims to prepare students to solve real problems and face the challenges of the job market. For Fruett, it is crucial to integrate both worlds. “Knowing how to solve a quadratic equation is useful. But it is when manipulating robots and other devices that the student applies this knowledge in everyday situations.”

The Escola 4.0 project has several fronts. The first and main one is the training of public school teachers in knowledge about educational robotics. In order to achieve this goal, the researcher and his team, including master's and doctoral students, created an online course in which they teach the basic elements necessary for teachers to transform their classrooms into a space for experimentation.

The course, available for free on Unicamp's Coursera page, has already been taken by more than 3 people since its launch in 2022. “The goal is to empower teachers so that they understand technology and can use it to their advantage in the classroom,” says Fruett.

Teacher training does not end when the course is completed. On the project's website, a virtual assistant provides the necessary support to continue developing educational experiments, through content such as assembling a low-cost electronic board to take to school and lesson proposals aligned with the National Common Curricular Base (BNCC), a document from the Ministry of Education with guidelines for basic education in Brazil.

The highlight of the project is BitDogLab, an educational board – entirely based on open technology – that combines microcontrollers, sensors and electronic components to facilitate learning. Possible experimental proposals include: experimentally measuring Earth's gravity to engage students during physics and science classes; using a digital watercolor to practice proportion and mathematics to mix primary colors, obtaining secondary colors, in an art class; and even measuring and transmitting to a mobile device the temperature and relative humidity of the air, in environments of interest to students, to address topics such as climate change.

Another, no less important front, is progress through workshops that the team offers to public schools. These workshops are usually held at the invitation of a teacher who has become aware of Escola 4.0. During the activity, Fruett and his team take BitDogLab boards to the classrooms and, together with the teachers, choose the activities to be carried out.

One of these workshops aims to stimulate logical thinking. In it, students use artificial intelligence to have their first contact with programming logic. “Syntax comes second. Many people want to teach everything at the same time and this can lead to a frustrating experience. We want to make this easier. So, with artificial intelligence, students often create a flowchart diagram, present the flowchart diagram to the artificial intelligence software and execute the diagram on the board.”

This year, as part of the Science & Art in Winter (Cafin), a Unicamp program carried out in partnership with the city of Campinas that seeks to awaken young talents for scientific research and artistic activities, Escola 4.0 offered its activities to students in the eighth and ninth grades of the city's public elementary schools. Fruett says he doesn't want to stop there and is looking for other government initiatives that can expand this opportunity in a systematic way.

In the academic area, Escola 4.0 offers extension courses for undergraduate and graduate students with the aim of strengthening their knowledge in the area of ​​electronics and robotics as well as developing their pedagogical skills, fundamental skills in school and non-school environments.

The next steps for the project, which received support from the National Institute of Science and Technology for Enabling Technologies (INCT Namitec) and the Office of the Vice-Rector for Extension, Sports and Culture (Proeec) at Unicamp, include expanding the activities to the public school system in a structured manner and with the support of local governments. With such support, explains Fruett, it is possible to make Escola 4.0 a project within a public policy context in order to transform education into a more attractive interdisciplinary model, preparing young people to solve real problems.