Design: portfólios de aprendizagem como artefatos cognitivos para a educação projetual

Abstract

How can one verify the level of Design Education (DesEd) of undergraduates in Design, considering how they dealt with the learning evidences produced for evaluation in Final Project Classes? This thesis proposes that the answer to the guiding question of the research comes from the knowledge related to Design Science, applied to the development of a practical solution to an educational problem. As a cognitive artifact, that is, a procedural model designed for knowledge production, a Learning Portfolio highlights the Design Awareness of students involved in the systematic documentation, curatorship and communication of texts, images, audios, videos, hypertext. and hypermedia produced in project–based learning situations. It is justified to choose Design Science Research (DSR) as a theoretical–conceptual methodological approach, from which scientific knowledge is used to Design artifacts that solve practical problems, from the initial stages of problem identification and classification, flowing in a driving cycle through the actions of planning, designing and implementing a Learning Portfolio model, until the joint evaluation and communication of the results obtained in the process, in terms of what was specifically learned about the ways of indicating DesEd levels. From interviews with teachers and undergraduate students belonging to Final Project disciplines of Design courses from Higher Education Institution located in the city of Rio de Janeiro, a diagnosis was made about the perceived value of using the Learning Portfolio as a cognitive artifact in classroom. The knowledge — concepts, constructs, models, methods and instantiations — generated through reflection, dialogue and collaboration between teacher–researcher, teachers and students, throughout the planning, development and use of Learning Portfolios, contributed to the identification, definition and application of a “Design Competence” rubric with criteria and metrics indicative of DesEd levels. Observation and analysis of the collected data indicate that student groups are increasingly aware of their cognitive, psychomotor, and affective abilities as they learn to document, select, and present evidence of the Design phases and stages that experienced during the formative process. Literature Reviews (RL), Surveys and Interviews with teachers and students on practical experience of developing and using Learning Portfolios in the classroom, among other methods and techniques, served to collect and analyze the data used in both the construction of the theoretical–methodological framework of reference for the present thesis, as in definition of the technological rules for the Design of an instantiation of the cognitive artifact, that is, a “Digital Learning Portfolio Platform”.