The use of models in the teaching-learning process by undergraduates in Geography

Abstract

The research analysed the design of the graduate students of the BSc in Geography of the Federal University of Rio Grande (FURG), members of the Institutional Scholarship Program for Initiation to Teaching (PIBID) on the use of scale models as a resource in the teachinglearning process. The empirical research was evaluated in three stages during development: the first one sought to highlight the preconception group; the second workshop implemented the models; and the third used the scale model in the classroom. The methodology is grounded in the concepts of Network Education Circles (Warschauer) and Learner Community (Brandão). The records written by the research subjects were analysed through Discourse Textual Analysis (Galiazzi and Moraes). The results showed a number of potentialities, limits and possibilities depending on the design of the study subjects, which were compared to the theoretical background of authors like Filetti, Nacke and Martins, Oliveira and Wankler, Quintela, Silva and Muniz, Simielli et al., and Torres. It was considered that the main potential of the scale model is to contribute to the process of teaching and learning, differentiating itself from other resources by providing the visualization of three-dimensional shape. As limitations, we highlight the school time and teacher time spent making the teaching resource. The chances are to build models from the relief, allowing teachers to use it to address other contents, like climate, vegetation, occupation and use of land, hydrography, transportation and logistics and agriculture.

Keywords: scale model, Institutional Scholarship Program for Initiation to Teaching, teaching Geography, teaching resource.