Experiences in Academic Literacy with MOOC

Abstract

Academic literacy is defined as a student having developed the skills and competencies related to the appropriation of writing inserted in the social practices and with the possibility to build and rebuild concepts and meanings. There are various studies that focus on the difficulties of university students in relation to the mother tongue, which highlights the importance of proposing and evaluating new processes and strategies geared towards academic literacy. This study aims to analyze the possibilities and limit of the use of technology as a support to the mediation process, interaction and dialogicity within structured didactic proposals in a closed and open virtual learning environment (MOOC), aiming at academic literacy. The theoretical premises of Feuerstein, Feuerstein, & Falik (2014) and Bakhtin (2010), especially in relation to the concepts of mediation, interactionism and dialogism, support two developed training proposals, tested and evaluated by teachers and graduate students, using the methodological referrals of research development (Van der Maren, 2003). In the first model, in a closed platform, a didactic sequence structured in a virtual learning environment was transposed. Only one of the activities (radioweb) was opened. It was observed that the lack of familiarity with the environment, as well as its formal organization and the lack of diversification of learning activities, can demotivate the student in the literacy process. This experience has given evidence of the importance of the use of resources that favor a more constant feedback to the student, allowing them to create their own pace of learning. Through the second model, which follows the assumptions of the construction of a MOOC, it can be inferred that the diversity in integrating technologies can offer conditions for self-learning, interaction and cooperation between pairs, with the goal of making the learning of the Portuguese language and academic genres more significant.