Didactic Games, Remote Education, and the Teaching of Chemistry: The Case of High School Students in a Rural Setting in Northeastern Brazil During the COVID-19 Pandemic

• In Event: Cultivating Equitable and Racially Just Teaching in Brazilian Public Schools Amid COVID-19, Racism, and Entangled Pandemics

Abstract

This research investigates the implementation and use of a didactic game based on discursive interactions. Situated in a high school in a rural area of Northeastern Brazil, it showed how teachers’ actions comprised an important factor to student learning. That is, as students played, they expressed their questions and negotiated mistakes. Teacher actions and interactions were pivotal to (re)signifying such miscues into deeper understandings of chemistry concepts. Knowing the importance of teacher pedagogical actions and interactions to student learning via didactic games, we inquired into a situated representation of a didactic game amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil and the move from face-to-face to remote schooling in Brazilian public schools. As classes moved to the remote realm, we asked: In what ways are teacher pedagogical actions and interactions around a didactic game (re)shaped in a virtual setting amidst remote teaching? This study was designed as an intervention and situated in a Chemistry class in a Brazilian rural public high school. Initially, the didactic game only engaged students who had been identified as having difficulty in organic chemistry functions. Subsequently, it engaged groups composed of students who had been identified as having difficulties and those deemed to have robust understandings and academic performances in Chemistry. Throughout, we documented student actions and teacher interactions. “Think aloud” enabled us to video record externalizations of students' thoughts in their planning, discussions, and reflections as they played the didactic game “Guess What?” Via microgenetic analysis, we focused our gaze on discursive interactions, attending to how zones of imminent development were negotiated and constituted within and across groups, finding that group composition impacted the flow and quantity of teacher actions and interactions. Our analysis found that regardless of group composition, teacher actions can prompt and support students to review their beliefs and reasoning, leading them to explain them to the group in a low-risk, high-support setting, ultimately benefiting the entire group as they collectively searched for alternative pathways, understandings, and propositions. Worth noting is that the less developed the understanding and conceptual knowledge of students, the more prominent role the teacher assumes, introducing scientific terminology and supporting students to explain their understanding, delving beyond surface-level understandings and memorizations. As students developed more robust conceptual understandings, teachers' probes and prompts diminished and students were able to engage with the didactic game in a way that was more similar to their engagement with non-didactic games. This process was supported by teacher intentionality, ensuring that students actively participated in the process of playing the game, analyzing missteps, and reflecting on implications for future game moves. Such a process was all the more important in the virtual, remote context, purposefully fomenting interactions. Findings point toward how didactic games such as “Guess What?” can engage and motivate students collectively, leading to reasoning and justifying their choices and actions. Implications point toward how such learnings and associated motivation can be leveraged into fruitful teaching and learning in low-resource schools, which often resort to banking approaches to education and lecturing.

Authors

• José Ayron Lira dos Anjos, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco

• João Roberto Ratis Tenório da Silva, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco

• Ana Paula Freitas da Silva, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco

• Ricardo Lima Guimarães, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco

• Arthur Marcelino de Lima Neves, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco