Proposal for the construction of tactile models for people with visual impairments applicable to remote teaching

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, it was observed that the Education sector was one of those that underwent the most transformations to adapt to the new reality and, for that, it adopted Remote Teaching (ER) – formerly Emergency, ERE – so that students continued to take classes, but in a digital way. However, this procedure did not reach the entire population, an example of this are people with visual impairment (PWVI). Faced with this reality, this research sought to analyze three methodologies for building tactile resources proposed by the academic community in relation to their applicability in Remote Learning. As a form of validation, critical characteristics for applicability were qualified, quali-quantitative questionnaires were elaborated and applied to professors specialized in teaching students with visual impairment, in order to define which methodologies and/or criteria would prove to be adaptable to the ER. After analyzing the results of the forms, it was concluded that it was necessary to create a new method and, therefore, a methodology for the construction of tactile models of geosciences for PWVI applicable to remote teaching was proposed, being divided into seven stages. At first, the teacher must choose a landscape to be represented and perform, through an interview with the student, the definition of his conception of the world in order to choose the best division of the parts of the model that will form a whole; in the second stage, the professor must obtain the raw materials necessary for construction and monitor the performance of a tactile sensitivity test by the student accompanied by their respective guardian; only after this test, the teacher will be able to move on to the third phase, where he will build the tactile resource with the student; then, in the fourth stage, the teacher defines the landscape concepts to be worked on according to the student’s learning stage; in the fifth stage, the teacher will be responsible for transmitting and teaching the previous stages to the students’ guardians; this will result in the sixth stage, in which the person in charge must build the tactile resource in person with the student; only after these stages, the teacher will be able to observe PWVI learning and propose new contents to be worked on in the built landscape, thus completing the seventh and last stage. Thus, it is stated that this research should not be extinguished in this study, but should reach new levels for validation, manipulation, stimulation of interdisciplinarity and execution of physical projects beyond the ER.