EDUCATIONAL PODCAST APPLIED TO THE NATURAL SCIENCES: THE NERVOUS SYSTEM

ABSTRACT

Embracing a wide plain of knowledge, Natural Sciences have become a genuine source of evolution and development in the human existence.

The teaching-learning process of this scientific area is now challenged to adapt to the needs and current lifestyle of the students. For teachers such invitation to adjust their strategies means the innovation of the pedagogical approach oriented to the conceptual change.

No longer confined to the classroom, the teaching-learning process can occur anywhere at any time, according to the choice of the students and respecting each one’s cognitive rhythm. In fact, schools can be equipped with a great variety of technological resources, but their integration in the teaching-learning process as groundbreaking practices, promoting an effective use by students, is still limited. It is therefore a task of the 21st century teachers the increase in use of the Innovation and Communication Technologies (ICT), with the digital-age born students, as a way of greater motivation and enhancement of classroom learning.

Included in the organizing theme “Better Living on Earth” and belonging to the 9th Grade syllabus, the topic named “The Nervous System” involves complex scientific words, which bring an enlarged effort in the teaching practice inside an educational context. In this context the following study problem was enunciated: the podcast applied as an auxiliary content segment of learning "The Nervous System", will lead to improved educational achievement of the students in 9th grade? The case study here to be presented lies on a mixed methodology covering a group of 19 students, allowed to use different techniques or dissimilar ways of obtaining and analyzing data. The results of such task will show the impact of using an educational podcast as a learning support of the above-mentioned programmatic content.

Innovative and attractive, the listening to a podcast, as a pedagogical support or a differentiated teaching strategy, proved to be a helpful tool for autonomous tasks. It worked as enlightening reinforcement, through which the students were able to clarify the doubts that they could not do on their own. As an additional benefit it allowed recreating the classroom ambiance in explaining moments.

Harmoniously gathering unprecedented ways, modern technologies and theoretical school contents teachers may step ahead in the most wished change in education: the return of the student’s motivation for knowledge.

KEYWORDS: podcast, teaching-learning, social constructivism, Natural Sciences, reinforcement learning.