Banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO: LIDIANE BEATRIZ RIBEIRO SOUSA DA SILVA

PERFORMANCE OF EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS IN CHILDREN IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL I: STUDY WITH INTERVENTION OF UNPLUGED COMPUTATIONAL THINKING ACTIVITY

Children; Cognitive Development; Computational Thinking; Unplugged Activities; Executive Functions.

The world is increasingly turning to technology in order to facilitate and optimize processes and solve problems. It is extremely important that we turn our eyes to children, who are new users and future developers and learn from an early age teamwork skills, leadership, decision making, critical thinking, adaptability and dealing with their own emotions. For this reason, it is essential to stimulate creative processes in learning through the technologies available at school, we must explore the possibilities of working with children and experience self-discovery in favor of the development of logical reasoning and the release of creativity (MORIN, 2003). In view of this, the teaching of computing as a science becomes relevant for the solid formation of the student, helping to build skills, such as: logical reasoning, critical thinking, decision making, ability to recognize patterns and solve problems, stimulating the development of executive functions (EF) from the practice of Computational Thinking (PC) activities that use Computer Science techniques to solve problems proposed to the new generation of students, meeting the required skills, ranging from critical thinking to children's cognitive development. This research aims to analyze the development of Executive Functions in children using unplugged Computational Thinking activities (without the use of computers). The research will be of an applied nature, with a qualitative approach, and its research methodology is action. To carry out this investigation, unplugged activities will be applied in the classroom, with students from the 3rd year of Elementary School I (children aged between 8-9 years) in a municipal public school, located in Parnamirim/RN. The research seeks to carry out a bibliographic survey, select Computational Thinking activities, investigate the performance of executive functions that contribute to cognitive training, after the interventions we will describe the results obtained by analyzing the pre and post test performed.