Práticas para fomentar o ensino de programação no nível médio

Abstract

The Computing area has the ability to permeate different human activities, which makes it be used for solving various problems in society. However, this area also faces a deficit scenario in Brazil, and researches from IDC Brazil (International Data Corporation) points out an increase by 117,000 open positions in the country until 2015, without employers finding qualified professionals to fill them. Thus, there is a growing concern when it comes to the education in computing and the encouragement of the area before undergraduation level, especially the teaching of programming, which is considered one of the pillars of the area. Therefore, this dissertation investigates the appropriate educational practices to promote programming education at high school level, obtained by the intersection of constructionist and sociocultural teaching philosophies, in addition to selecting an evaluation model for educational software. From this model and the evaluation of three educational tools (Alice, Scratch and Pygame), the selected practices were carried out through a workshop class of Python programming, taught to the target audience. According to the results presented and through a questionnaire directed to the students, this dissertation concludes that the observed practices, besides complying with the proposed learning objectives, also allow the creation of spaces for the development of critical and reflexive thinking, and serve as a vehicle for promoting creativity and motivation for students.