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LIFE \/ UFSC<\/span><\/a> In Santa Catarina, assistive technology developed at UFSC helps Eduardo to communicate in classLIFE \/ UFSC<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n Luana Zimmer Sarzi, a special education teacher at the school, had previously worked with Eduardo, assisting him with his activities at school. When the computer arrived, she helped him learn the new tools. Although his scholastic achievement and his ability to express himself independently did improve, Eduardo was only able to use the equipment\u2014which sat on his classroom desk\u2014when he was in class. In addition to this spatial limitation, the lack of a special fixture meant that the sensor would often come out of line with his line of sight, preventing access to the controls.<\/p>\n That\u2019s when Hamilton de Godoy Wielewicki, a coordinator at LIFE, got involved. He approached the Mechanical Production Engineering Department at the university to enlist professors and students in working together with teachers at the school to develop a solution to Eduardo\u2019s learning challenges. \u201cWe needed a low-cost computer fixture that could accommodate the student\u2019s involuntary spasms,\u201d says Wielewicki. The goal was to create something that could later be replicated at commercial scale. The project was completed a year later in 2017, in a collective effort involving students, researchers, and professors from the School of Engineering and teachers from the laboratory school. A prototype mechanical arm was built by the company GW Usinagem and mounted on Eduardo\u2019s wheelchair. Since then, he has been able to precisely operate the computer with his eye movements, and carry it around wherever he goes.<\/p>\n Cesar Frantz, an engineer and doctoral student at the robotics laboratory at UFSC, applied for a patent for the invention. \u201cBy collaborating with the university, we were able to solve a pedagogical problem and use technology to create a low-cost product that can also help people with similar problems to Eduardo\u2019s,\u201d says Wielewicki. At the laboratory school in Florian\u00f3polis, 71 of the 945 attending students are special education students.<\/p>\n LIFE \/ UFSC <\/span><\/a> The laboratory at UFSC hosts student projects in different fieldsLIFE \/ UFSC <\/span><\/p><\/div>\n Laboratory schools have scored higher on the Index of Development of Basic Education (IDEB) in recent years than the average for public schools. In 2015, a laboratory school run by the School of Education at the University of S\u00e3o Paulo (FE-USP), which celebrated its 60th<\/sup> anniversary in 2019, was the top-ranked public high school in S\u00e3o Paulo City with a score of 6.6\u2014the country average in 2015 was 4.5.<\/p>\n Maria L\u00facia de Souza Barros Pupo, a professor in the Department of Performing Arts at the School of Communications and Arts (ECA), has led a project over the past three years that aims to facilitate theater appreciation among children. Diego de Castro Camelo, an undergraduate student and a member of the project team, is conducting one arm of the study at the laboratory school. This year he organized two theater excursions with nine classes and a total of 240 children. \u201cThe excursions are preceded by sessions in which we introduce students to the language of drama and the theme of the play, and are followed by sessions to discuss and extend the experience and students\u2019 engagement with the play,\u201d says Camelo. Adriana Silva de Oliveira, a performing arts teacher at the laboratory school, says projects like these create learning situations in which children can dialog with the play on the basis of their own repertoire.<\/p>\n Collaboration with university researchers often leads to the adoption of new education methodologies. A case in point is a project developed between 2011 and 2014 by Claudemir Belintane, a professor at the School of Education. With funding from CAPES, the project, titled \u201cThe challenge of teaching reading and writing to nine-year-old primary students,\u201d implemented an orality-oriented approach to teaching reading and writing at laboratory schools affiliated with USP and the Federal University of Paran\u00e1, and a public school in Pau dos Ferros, Rio Grande do Norte, northeastern Brazil<\/a>. \u201cThis method includes, for example, exercises in which children are asked to find words hidden within other words. The challenge provides a stimulus for reading,\u201d explains F\u00e1tima Morissawa, deputy principal at the laboratory school affiliated with USP.<\/p>\n Students at laboratory schools are equipped to become future researchers<\/p><\/blockquote>\n A renovated curriculum<\/strong> The USP laboratory school has 740 primary and secondary students\u2014all assigned through a public draw\u2014and around 36 teachers, most hired on a dedicated basis. \u201cHaving dedicated teachers improves student performance as it allows teachers to devote part of their time to research activities that enhance the learning process by introducing innovative approaches to teaching subjects,\u201d says Carlota Boto of FE. Marcelo de Salete Souza, who teaches visual arts at the school, won a Jabuti award in Brazil and an Eisner award\u2014the most prestigious award in the comics industry, presented annually at San Diego Comic-Con\u2014in the US in 2018 for his book Cumbe<\/em>, a comic book about slavery in Brazil published four years prior. The book draws on his research on the colonial period and the black community. \u201cWe have now developed educational activities about colonial Brazil and slavery that are based around these comics, as a way to spark young students\u2019 interest in their studies,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\nAnother collaboration between the school and FE was a project to restructure the science curriculum for primary education. Between 2014 and 2017, FE professors L\u00facia Helena Sasseron and Martha Marandino held monthly meetings with primary teachers at the school to develop ways to improve the approach to teaching these subjects. One conclusion from the meetings was that the science curriculum should include not only conceptual content, but also information on how science works. \u201cIn this new approach, students learn science culture through aspects of everyday life in a science literacy program that includes activities in the school\u2019s vegetable garden and at museums,\u201d says Sasseron, noting that this approach was incorporated into the Brazilian National Common Curriculum guidelines in 2017.<\/p>\n