Bringing Paulo Freire's thinking closer to university engineering faculty. : The case of the Pernambuco Polytechnic School (Brazil)

Abstract

This article presents a research about learning assessment that was conducted at an institution of higher education in engineering: the Escola Politécnica da Universidade de Pernambuco, Brazil. The work refers to three phases of the study and aims to describe the action-research phases in which Paulo Freire's ideas have most clearly interacted in teacher training, and to record the effects that these have had on his action. Five teachers participated in the study, who built and implemented a methodology for evaluating learning from a training and emancipatory perspective. All of this has carried through action-research using different techniques, such as: interviews, the researcher's diary, a questionnaire and documentary analysis. The results highlight three key phases in which it has been possible to clearly identify the influence of Freirean ideas: tackling with the institutional and evaluative culture of the University, discussing the new formative and emancipatory approach to evaluation practices and, finally, dealing with formative and emancipatory evaluation at present in the polytechnic. The conclusions suggest that the initiative taken by the group of teachers willing to promote the improvement of their students’ learning has transformed the institution into a favourable space for educational innovation. The institutionalisation of pedagogical meetings promoted by the research group is assumed to be an effect of Freire's ideas on the action of teachers.