A formação de comunidades de aprendizagem e a reflexão crítica em cursos EAD

Abstract

From a social criticism standpoint, the study deals with learning communities and the critical formation of subjects in distance education. It recognizes that the quality of ICT mediated education depends on social interaction in virtual spaces, which can turn out to be a space of possibility to promote critical thinking. An empirical model was developed to analyse the relationship between the existence of learning communities and deepness of critical thinking. The instrument uses categories of analysis such as affection, cohesion and interaction to identify the existence of learning communities, and levels of critical thinking such as identification, description, exploration, application and integration of problems. The results contribute to the exploration of distance courses through qualitative research, while being able to confirm the hypothesis of the importance of learning communities to critical thinking in learning processes.