Flexquest “tem química na minha dieta?” associada ao uso de problemas : uma proposta para flexibilização do conhecimento relacionado às dietas restritivas

Abstract

This research was inspired by the potential of the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and by the need for a contextualized, interdisciplinary, problematizing and educating citizenship education. Our goal is to build a flexible knowledge in students regarding restrictive diets in an interdisciplinary approach from a FlexQuest to contribute to contextualising the content of organic reactions. For this, we propose the construction of a FlexQuest, based on real cases involving restrictive diets, so that, when used as a didactic strategy, it contributes to a contextual and interdisciplinary study of some aspects of organic chemistry. The tool that was initially developed by Leão and his collaborators in 2006, is based on the foundations of Spiro's (2008) Theory of Cognitive Flexibility. In this work, school problems (POZO, 1998) will be integrated into FlexQuest following the assumptions of a Problem Based Learning. Thus, the potential of the FlexQuest strategy in the development of cognitive flexibility, when coupled with this other approach, will be evaluated. Our methodological course is divided into three stages: the construction of FlexQuest, the intervention in the classroom and the analysis of data. The analysis of the students' previous knowledge, made from the content analysis of a conceptual map, allowed us to verify that they had an introductory knowledge, or superficial, in relation to the restrictive diets. At another point in the analysis, we found that they moved from this introductory level of knowledge to the advanced level by deepening the discussions on the subject, relating it to other contents and contexts, and using it to understand real situations. Finally, the analysis of the other data showed that the students were able to not only reach higher levels of knowledge, but also to cross the landscape, demonstrating the expansion of knowledge and a cognitive maturation. We emphasize that the FlexQuest strategy was used in an interdisciplinary approach involving directly the disciplines of chemistry and physical education, and indirectly the discipline of biology. The results pointed to a contribution of the same in the contextualization of organic reactions.