Comunidade Virtual de Prática (VCoP) como apoio à educação a distância no IFMT em tempos de pandemia: a narrativa reflexiva de um percurso

Abstract

This study investigated the functioning of a Virtual Community of Practice (VCoP) in an educational institution, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Organized to support the training of mediators in an emergency teacher training course, at a distance, VCoP had in its practitioners, all civil servants with experience in distance education, the subjects of the research. As a main objective, the study sought to understand how the interaction between VCoP practitioners occurs through digital network technologies. For that, it was necessary to approach the interactions from the socio-historical point of view and, also, based on the Social Theory of Learning, specifically in the perspective of Situated Learning, fundamental to understand the Communities of Practice (CoP) approach. By connecting these fundamental concepts to knowledge such as cybernetics, artificial intelligence, ubiquitous learning, cognitive science and complex thinking, the study promoted an important reference update to place VCoP at the center of an interdisciplinary plot. This connection helped to bring the perspective proposed by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger closer to the scenario based on the educational area, a growing trend, as evidenced in related studies. Based on the methodological basis of action research and through a multi-referential analysis of the reflections launched in an online research diary, the study showed that the engagement of practitioners around their collective mediation actions in the course, led them to a situation of beneficial to them and showed the academic community that the institution can organize itself to teach and learn at a critical moment