Sixteenth International Conference on Technology, Knowledge & Society

Abstract

The new curricular standards known as the Base Nacional Comum Curricular (BNCC) proposed by the Brazilian Ministry of Education (MEC) was released in December, 2017. The BNCC is an official document that presents a body of knowledge that all students have the right to learn. Also, states and municipalities are required to implement it from 2020 on in Brazil. Core learning defined at the BNCC High School is organized by knowledge areas. For this study, I focus on English teaching as part of Languages and their Technologies area. The BNCC concentrates on recognizing the potential of digital technologies to perform a series of activities related to all areas of knowledge and different social practices. With these new standards, some challenges arise for teachers to implement them. Now they have to look at knowledge in a macro way in which all content is interconnected and help students to develop critical thinking linked to culture, diversity, and technology. Another challenge revealed by the British Council Brazil (2015) is that most public school teachers do not have access to continuing education. So, there is a need for teacher professional development that offers possibilities of teaching towards the implementation of BNCC standards focusing on skills from 21st century learning. For that, I designed a course encompassing the “seven affordances” of e-learning ecologies by Cope and Kalantzis (2017). First, I contextualize the new BNCC and analyse how the activities in the course can assist teachers to develop some of the BNCC goals.