Affective and social aspects in distance education : the interdisciplinarity in focus

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of the possible contributions of the affective and social aspects to the development of pedagogical practices in the modality of Distance Education. The interactions of students in a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) were observed and identified based on the use of specific instruments of affective and social analysis. The aim is to assist the teacher in the development of his pedagogical practices carried out through an VLE. The methodology used was the qualitative developed in a discipline at a public university in the south of Brazil in 2018. Twelve undergraduate students from different undergraduate courses participated in the study. The data were extracted from the Social Map and Affective Map tools available in ROODA VLE, used in the discipline. These tools enable a mapping of the student's affective and social profile, from the productions and interactions of the students in the VLE. The results point to the relevance of the support that the information provided by the maps can provide to the teacher. In this sense, they contribute to the decision of pedagogical practices, since they can corroborate the strategies adopted by the teacher or they can base the (re)orientation of the proposed activities in order to meet the affective and social demands of each student. The data obtained provided, in addition to a more in-depth discussion on the subject, the development of new resources as a system of recommendation of pedagogical strategies based on the social and affective aspects of the student.