CAN DISTANCE LEARNING PRACTICES FOSTER GRADUATE STUDENTS CREATIVITY?

This study aims to investigate the possibilities of developing creativity among graduate students through a distance learning graduate Brazilian program. The program is developed by a Consortium of public universities at Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil. The courses present both distance and classroom activities (the last ones include tutoring, laboratorial practices and evaluations). The study was focused on a discipline offered at the first period of the biology teacher’s formation, and has a total of 1000 subscribed students. We describe pedagogic practices implemented and an evaluation of the student’s creativity development from the student’s point of view, as measured by an Inventory of Educational Practices that considers four main factors: incentive to new ideas, environment to express ideas, evaluation and methodology of teaching and interest for the student’s learning. One hundred forty one students answered the inventory anonymously. The answers pointed out insights about the course methodology. The four factors analyzed indicate that it is possible to contribute to the students’ creativity development with the employed methodology.