Aplicação da metodologia de Aprendizagem baseada em problemas (ABP) no ensino de cinética e reatores químicos

Abstract

The active teaching methodologies play, currently, an important role as a counterpoint to the traditional teaching model, which is used to the intense technical training, lectures, and a context in which the student is encouraged to be only a spectator of something that is being presented. To place the student at the center of learning, active methodologies emerge as an alternative that encourages challenging, practical, and contextualized learning. Thus, this undergraduate work aimed to apply the active methodology of Problem-Based Learning (PBL), in the teaching of Kinetics and Chemical Reactors, applied in a class of the Chemical Engineering course at the Federal University of São Carlos. PBL is a method that consists of using problem situations that simulate real situations that the professional may face in their daily work, in order to motivate and direct the student through a learning process based on a work dynamic that is collaborative, contextualized, and multidisciplinary. The application of this study is stimulated, in addition to aspects of improving the learning process, by the need for adaptation to the new National Curriculum Guidelines (NCG’s) of Engineering on the part of higher education courses. The new NCGs, launched in 2019, seek to bring changes in the teaching format and direct which skills are important for the current training of engineering professionals, adapting to the new requirements of today. For the development of this graduation work, problem situations were created that simulated real scenarios of the industry and processes involving catalytic reactors with pressure drop. The work also proposed the evaluation and discussion of learning factors in the process of applying PBL in the context of engineering. The course was taught in the form of non-face-to-face emergency teaching due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The results of the experiment proved to be positive, with the teams formed showing very good performance throughout the discipline. All teams developed consistent results and achieved the learning objectives for heterogeneous reactors, developing the mass balances for the PBR system, understanding how the pressure drop in the bed acts on the reaction and its conversion, in addition to creating models that allowed to find optimal operational conditions for the process. In addition to teaching aspects, students' development in socio-emotional skills was noted, reflected in the good performance of teamwork.