STRATEGIES FOR STUDENT INTEGRATION: an experience report of the 1st Academic Week to Welcome EaD students at a Public University in the North of Paraná

Abstract

In the present work, the objective is to socialize the results from the 1st Academic Week to Welcome EaD Students developed in a Public University at the North of Parana by its Center for Distance Education (NEAD – in Portuguese) in partnership with the research group Digital Literacies: methodological and theoretical perspectives on teaching and learning, and teacher training, to welcome and setting in its new students. In methodological terms, this event was held completely synchronously, in which all lectures and round tables were broadcasted via Youtube, Moodle and Google Meet. Since this is an experience report, the instruments used to describe the information were: the event registration form, the attendance lists made using Google Forms, and the participation of students through chats and forums. The analysis of these interactions and participations was done qualitatively, in an interpretivist research epistemology. Considering that the university is organized in different courses, which comprise undergraduate and graduate studies, with different areas of knowledge, it is natural to have some distance between the students of these courses. This characteristic is intensified when considering the same offer but in the Distance Education Modality (EaD – in Portuguese). Often restricted to in-person support centers, students sometimes limit their interaction to their class and to digital learning platforms. However, although common, this distancing is not necessary, and creating strategies that promote integration among courses brings, in addition to exchanges of experiences, the feeling of belonging that is a fundamental characteristic to combat evasion. Besides, discussing the issue of presentiality is so important in this educational scenario. As a result, it is emphasized the importance of opportunities to provide these spaces that promote discussions about the role of the university in the education of our students as citizens, critical-reflective agents, in all areas of knowledge, contributing significantly to the control of evasion and improvement in terms of more effective participation by our students in all activities offered to them.