INTRODUCTION

The number of students enrolled in graduate courses has increased in recent decades. Despite this, since the year 2000, national data and international evaluations have shown low quality in the teaching at Brazilian public schools (^{Brasil, 2020}). Although to a lesser extent, this scenario extends to private institutions. The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) showed that Brazilian students from the richest groups achieved lower positions than students from other countries belonging to poorer groups (^{OECD, 2019}). In an attempt to improve the democratization and qualitative universalization of schooling, scholars of the field (^{Saviani, 2012}; ^{Gadoti, 2017}; ^{Nóvoa, 2017}) defend the implementation of critical and reflective perspectives in educational contexts. In view of this, the Gasparian method was verified in some contexts of basic education and presented satisfactory results (^{Xavier and Gasparin, 2018}). Hence, this study investigated the potential for action and foundation of teaching didactics, also in higher education, when supported by the Gasparian theoretical-practical method based on the Historical-Cultural Psychology and Historical-Critical Pedagogy (^{Gasparin, 2012}).

The improvement of didactic action involving professional training has been discussed for decades in the Brazilian educational sphere by several scholars (^{Gasparin,1994}; ²⁰¹²; ^{Pimenta, 2001}; ²⁰⁰⁸; ^{Scalcon, 2002}; ^{Marsiglia, 2007}; ^{Libâneo, 2010}; ^{Duarte, 2013}; ^{Mancebo et al., 2015}). Yet, the question has been sparsely debated without a specific direction, resulting in legislations in the form of laws and decrees that, although fundamental, are far removed from teaching praxis.

Thus, the improvement of the teaching didactic action has become a condition sine qua non due to the high rates of school failure and dropout in both basic and higher education. These indices represent the need to rethink professional training, since the evaluations carried out in these spheres evidence the unsatisfactory results. Moreover, quantitative assessment instruments are often unable to measure the student’s abilities and competencies in an integral way, thus generating exclusions that also culminate in school dropout (^{Brasil, 2015}; ^{Hoffmann, 2013}).

In view of this, this study pointed to the possibilities of theoretical and practical interventions with the Gasparian method, which is based on Historical-Cultural Psychology and Historical-Critical Pedagogy, verifying its possibility to be implemented in higher education, as knowledge moves dialectically in it in five moments interconnected in a spiral in a nonlinear way through the path of syncresis, analysis, and synthesis, even allowing to approach dimensions of the contents in an interdisciplinary way (^{Gasparin, 2012}; ^{Gasparin and Petenucci, 2015}). Also, this study is justified by the need for solid teacher training generating approaches to the pedagogical praxis of professional training of the various subject areas, by the attempt to reduce the rates of failure and dropout, and by the qualification of teaching by overcoming students’ difficulties. Therefore, identifying the potential for action and didactic foundation of the Gasparian theoretical-practical method in university contexts may become an opportunity to generate human emancipation within these educational spheres.

METHODOLOGY

RESULTS

The five professors who conducted the experiment and were subsequently interviewed were given fictitious names (WDA, WDE, WDI, WDO, WDU).

In order to better visualize and interpret the data, they were presented in figures and Charts. The research work began with the elaboration of the Teacher’s and Student’s Action Plan in the perspective of the Historical-Critical Pedagogy.¹ The following Figure shows the moments of the plan and its execution in class. Both the work plan - the starting point of all teaching work, as well as its execution - the class - cater to the dialectic that evidences the interdependence of the various moments of the didactic-pedagogical process, avoiding linearity, as everything is in interconnection since each moment of the process contains, conflictingly, in itself, all the others.

Figure 1 presented the five categories of analysis in detail, named according to the moments and the didactic elements of the Gasparian method: Social Practice; Problem Posing; Instrumentation; Catharsis; and Social Practice.

Source: Prepared by the authors, 2022.

Picture 1 - Gasparian Method - Higher Education. 

DISCUSSION

When we identified the potential for action and foundation of the Gasparian method in higher education, we verified aspects of Historical-Critical Theory already being used by the surveyed professors, though they were not clearly aware of this. Awareness was important to verify and validate some aspects such as Initial Social Practice of the content and Catharsis.

The experiences, based on the Gasparian method, narrated by the teachers, may be summarized as follows: planning is a tool that allows for the improvement of students’ learning performance; it allows to previously assess the contents, from its objectives; it articulates the classes according to the level of learning that students already have; it instigates teachers to know what students already know so as to add to the knowledge they brought in; it allows to recognize that students often bring more than what teachers do; it represents an incentive for research; with it, professors can anticipate the content that will be taught; it can increase the scope of content of the class, making it more dynamic and complete; it promotes dialogue between students and professors, making it more dynamic and complete. It promotes dialogue between teaching and learning because professors start the class investigating what students already know or are aware about the content and, from there, introduce scientific knowledge, with greater depth and quality of discussion, often deconstructing a value judgment or common sense, since it is the only way to understand the content. The theory makes it possible to broaden the view of the subject not only for students, but also for professors, to the extent that professors must relate the subject to other issues and the students stop to think about issues that often come to them ready-made. Therefore, we infer that the critical awareness of professors has become more intense after our intervention work.

Regarding the appropriation of the theoretical knowledge of the Gasparian method, we observed that the student discourse was organized under the conception of historical materialism in education, of Historical-Cultural Psychology and of Historical-Critical Pedagogy, since they were completed in a dialectical logic, of movement and of spiral, corroborating what ^{Lefebvre (1983}) defends. No professor has been inconsistent with the assumption of the question that it is necessary to plan classes; both discourse and positioning reveal the ideology internalized by teachers about society, humankind, and education inherent to the theories that underlie the intervention we perform.

By “planning classes”, being considered an instrumental act, an abstract action of the symbolic, of the sign, it also dialectically responds to the social need of the men of their time to consciously propose to collaborate to transform reality. It is at this moment, when planning their lessons, that one should present the reasons why they should learn the proposed content, not for their own sake, but according to social needs (^{Gasparin, 2012}). We can say that in all the speeches, philosophical and scientific conceptual dimensions of Historical Materialism, Historical-Cultural Theory and their relationship with Historical-Critical Pedagogy emerge, above all, clear concerns with the Stages of the Gasparian Didactic-pedagogical Pathway.

The answer concerning the difficulties in having a ready-made model to follow (teacher-WDE) deserves some attention, leading us to infer a critical-reproductive teaching practice, not problem posing, not open to reflection. Such fact disturbed us and led us to question rather than to make any more conclusive inference: would professors be revealing their permanence in the syncretic stage of knowledge? Or, at the time of the professors’ pedagogical activity, there, in the empirical situation of planner, even if they wish to develop their work based on an education founded on dialectical Historical Materialism, Historical-Cultural Theory, and Historical-Critical Pedagogy, is it possible that the long years of experience in non-critical or critical-reproductivistic pedagogies still prevail?

On the other hand, dialoguing with ^{Libâneo (1994}), ^{Luckesi (1994}), ^{Franca (1952}) ^{Suchodolski (1978}), ^{Gasparin (1994}; ²⁰¹²) and also with ^{Saviani (2003}; ²⁰⁰⁷; ²⁰¹²), we understand the existence of a student conditioned to listen in order to passively repeat in the face of a liberal pedagogy mixed with a conservative one, which defends this submission, passivity, as it preaches a wild capitalist mode of production in which individualism is superimposed; therefore, no dialogs in the classroom about science, knowledge, and social reality about man. The underlying theory is non-critical, to defend the “status quo”. The methodological steps are called “scientific” on the basis of a limiting and not at all emancipating technicism, and are mixed with steps from conservative pedagogy, with a predominance of expositive classes: Preparation, Presentation, Assimilation, Generalization and Application, in an objectivist knowledge model.

Time, stolen in liberal pedagogies, became master in the Gasparian method, since the stages dialoged in frequent rounds, generating reflection in a coming and going in the dialectic of knowledge that is built, in its own way. According to WDO, the scheduled time for the course was not enough to apply the theory. It took a little more time. Of course, the process of teaching and learning in higher education does not dispense with mediation. When students are more interested in systematized content, they become more participants in the process of building their knowledge; therefore, they generate a more intense dialectical movement aiming to know themselves and their social practice associated with interdisciplinary content. We infer that the pedagogical experience lived with the professors interfered and transformed the relations between research-knowledge-action of the teachers, revealing possibilities to transform the pedagogical praxis through teaching didactic action.

Complementing our analysis, we infer, from the professors’ answers, the perception of the students’ prior knowledge as a basic premise for learning. Such perception suggests possibilities to relate the empirical contents to the scientific ones, thus enhancing learning. In this moment of observation of the Initial Social Practice of the content, even though professors and students are faced with more syncretic, chaotic ideas arising from everyday life outside school, somewhat disjointed from intentionally planned pedagogical practices, it is possible to contextualize theory and practice (^{Gasparin, 2012}; ^{Saviani, 2012}). Therefore, as empirical knowledge is confronted with scientific knowledge, the former tends to weaken to give way to the strengthening of the latter. It is a dialectical, spiral, uninterrupted logic. During the survey of the initial social practice of the content, professors can work with more specific issues and transcend to universal ones, through mediation.

Critical theories, based on Historical-Dialectical Materialism, are characterized by the assumption of education as emancipation and, at this juncture, in the Gasparian method, professors and students are brought face to face, in the psychological line of learning, in a zone of current development; they searched in a zone of immediate development and, in a safe direction, because it was aimed at, to a new one of current development, crowning themselves, in turn, in the process of awareness (^{Vygotsky, 1998}; ²⁰⁰⁰).

This is possible because, in this method, each stage of the didactic path connects to the other almost imperceptibly. During the application of the project, it was possible for the researcher to distinguish each step, but the unity between the steps was inseparable. The time was sufficient for the achievement of the objectives because the professors limited themselves to expand the contents according to the dimensions raised in each discipline. Extensions were made as they complemented and allowed students to understand how the contents dialoged with the other subject areas; therefore, intertextuality was the greatest criterion for expansion. Each professor was careful to follow the development and participation of the students, to maintain the line of reasoning of the content dimensions, assuring them the unity between each stage of the journey.

The Gasparian method in the course of social practice enabled insights from both teachers and students about the existing structures in the educational contexts, in this case Accounting Sciences, Design, and Fashion. Problem posing was fundamental to detect the issues that need to be solved within these social contexts, revealing gaps that need to be mastered. In the instrumentation process some consideration was given on the appropriation of the cultural tools necessary for social action and in catharsis there was awareness. The return to social practice, modified by the dialectical process and transformed into a new thesis, susceptible to new antithesis and synthesis, was, simultaneously, a starting point and a point of arrival, revealing the political dimension of the content that led the teaching action to transformation, to praxis in the sense of transforming social reality, which is its great motivating character. Thus, the method allowed the development of a democratic learning environment created from competing interpretations generating political issues specific to the life of the subjects (teachers and students) involved in the educational process.

The current educational model, in higher education, has its roots in neoliberal conceptions of teaching. This hegemonic system does not produce serious critical thinking and keeps students as relatively passive subjects. In addition, it marginalizes the different identities that are natural to a plural country such as Brazil. From this perspective, students end up severing their connections to the personal world and directing their professions to the private, individual realm, disconnected from a sense of community. The Gasparian method also allows to rescue what is routine in the students’ life by establishing, among the contents, a knowledge network capable of producing political formations based on everyday debates such as gender, race, class or sexual orientation issues. It allows for critical reflection, awareness, and the creation of practical solutions for feminist formations, different races, different disabilities, gays, lesbians, indigenous peoples, quilombolas (people who lived in communities of runaway slaves/maroons), and other subjects that look to the university for liberation from colonizing structures and, therefore, challenge a curriculum that insists on defining professional expertise in relation to history, theory, and practice from a white, heterosexual, Euro-American, male-conscious perspective.

Thus, the application of the Gasparian method also proved to be recommendable in higher education, because, through it, it was observed that teachers took on the role of mediators in the process, with the students becoming the protagonists. Also, the method required a theoretical-practical deepening of the contents; this led the pedagogical praxis to interdisciplinary dimensions, requiring students and teachers to leave their comfort zones in search of new knowledge. This process, which naturally generates discomfort due to the withdrawal of those involved in the educational process from traditional expository methods in which students are passive subjects and professors are active ones, starts to instigate students in the search for new knowledge, expanding their reading baggage. Reading is an indispensable element for the acquisition of critical thinking, in addition to being one of the fundamental bases in countries that have educational systems of reference. Therefore, the implementation of the Gasparian method in higher education can help in the quality of teaching in Brazilian schools by qualifying a teaching didactics that places students as critical protagonists of their educational trajectory, thus improving the national rates of democratization and universalization of Education.

CONCLUSION

This intervention action research with the Gasparian method in higher education revealed that it was effective in qualifying the teaching didactics of the study co-participants. According to them, the method revealed more qualitative impact on the motivation and teacher-student relationship when compared to traditional, expository methods, previously used by teachers, as they place students in a passive stance in relation to the contents. Student performance in the context of the new pedagogical praxis requalified the teaching-learning process, a factor that can contribute to the quality of education and reduce, in the long term, school dropout in higher education. This study sought to open paths for the possibilities of implementing this method in higher education, but, at the moment, it was limited to the teaching perspective. Future studies on this method also need to be carried out to observe the qualitative impacts on the learning of students of this level of Education.