Use of formative mandalas in the remote teaching-learning process

an experience report in the light of Freire's pedagogy

Abstract

The context provided by COVID-19 brought changes in multiple areas, especially in education, in which teachers needed several resources to develop their activities remotely, such as mandalas that, in health education, are configured as folds and gaps that open up in the conception of training and knowledge production. Therefore, this study aims to describe the experience of using formative mandalas in remote education in the light of Freire's pedagogy. This is an experience report lived from a discipline taught in a public health program at a university in northeastern Brazil during the months of August and September 2020. The discipline had nine virtual meetings, three of which mandalas were used as a teaching strategy. The mandalas proved to be relevant to the teaching-learning process, providing opportunities for debates and reflections with the concepts imbricated in it, presenting peculiarities and differentiating from each other by their characteristics. Through them, it became possible to externalize feelings, knowledge, academic and professional experiences, in addition to crossing with Freire's pedagogy. It is necessary that experiences like this become disseminated in different teaching scenarios, propagating strategies that facilitate learning with reflection and commitment in order to transform realities.