Meeting with students of Pioneer - 1999
Pedagogical Report
By
Ana Cristina Camargo
Translation: Cristiana Assumpcao
Justification for the meeting:
After the fourth evaluation report about the progress of the activities related to the challenge "Mars Millennium Project", we verified that some recurring problems were occurring in the group of students, such as:
- Lack of references of research;
- Lack of objectivity in the online email discussions;
- The forum was not being used for discussions;
- Significant side tracking of the group in relation to the pre-established objectives set out by the coordinators, which can be found in the Project Pioneer site.
What was discussed at the meeting:
- need to take a look again at the objectives of the project, to redirect and focus the discussions, to organize the process;
- need and importance of using to forum for discussions, since this space organizes and facilitates group discussions;
- need to define the work groups by research themes to better organize people and research depth. This doesn't mean students cannot participate in other research themes besides the one they chose in this stage.
- need and importance of citing research references, since they will be extremely necessary for discussions and idea foundations during the building of the colony;
- four new participants have joined, in the music part, which will be elaborating music themes for the site.
Questions made to the students:
- What are the difficulties being faced by you at this stage of the project?
General answer: organizing ideas; questions related to the objectives of the colony; discussions have been too broad, making research difficult. The Internet has too many things to research, and we don't know where to start.
- Why are you seeking the teachers' help to solve the problems, and not researching for yourselves?
General answer: Asking the teachers is easier. Laziness to do the research and find information about their questions. Accommodation.
- Why are you asking Cristiana less questions? Do you feel any difference in the relationship or intimacy level because she doesn't have direct contact with you, and can just be reached by email?
General answer: You (teachers that were at the meeting) are "closer"... It is easier to talk to you... We think that will be taken care of with time, where we'll be asking Cristiana more questions further on.
What was agreed on as of this meeting?
- effective migration of discussions to the forum;
- general organization of ideas brought up and discussed by the groups to this moment, in order to prepare for the presentations in the beginning of 2000.
General conclusions about the meeting:
Based on this meeting, we could observe that the students were relatively lost as to their roles in the teams. Even though some of them knew which team they wanted to be in, there was no initiative on their part to start to research the chosen theme more in depth, and this fact they didn't know how to explain.
Before the meeting began, some students were solving doubts about how to use the project discussion forum, fact that could explain the apparent resistance in using this tool. However, it has been some time after the meeting, and we still notice that the forum has not been very much used. It's important to call attention to the fact that the students are on vacation, and some have already traveled.