SENAI School of the Future
In Santa Catarina state in Brazil, near Florianopolis...
...in Campeche, SENAI will build a new school like none other in Brazil.
The school site today is an open field...
...near the beach...
...that will soon become one of the most forward-looking schools in Brazil. With sessions running both morning and afternoon, its students will complete both academic high school and professional education in three years. Like all SENAI schools, the curriculum will be tailored to meet the needs of business and industry in Santa Catarina state. Unlike most schools in Brazil, the new school will follow the principles of Education 3.0, with student work focusing on real-world problems, with students taking responsibility for their own learning, with all materials and assignments available online, and taking full advantage of networked digital technologies.

How will this school work in practice? Let's walk through the SENAI School of the Future and see what the students are up to...

Pollution 
As we enter the school, we see a group of three students around a table looking at a map displayed on one of their tablets. Zooming in with their fingers, they examine the surroundings of Lagoa Pequena, just north of the school. "Where is the pollution coming from?" asks one of the students. "That depends on what you mean by pollution," responds another. "That's our first task in this problem: to define the terms. Then we must map the site...
... before we go out there and gather water samples.
We'll bring those back to the chemistry lab, where we will analyze them using the digital microscope, the pH probe connected to this tablet, and the probe for dissolved oxygen as well."

The project they are working on was designed by three of their teachers, working together: geography, chemistry, and biology. Through their close study of a local situation, they will learn their academic content, while at the same time contributing to making their community a better place. Once they've mapped and analyzed the data, they'll seek out its root causes, and design a solution.

When they are finished , they will present their results to the Florianopolis Water Resources Board.

They work in a group most of the time, meeting with their teacher once a week to report their progress and get advice on the next steps.

The sequence of tasks for this project are set forth on the school's learning management system (LMS), so the students always know what to do next. And if they run into problems, the teacher is always available by instant message or webconference. The students can also set an appointment with the teacher, so they can meet in person.

By mapping the lagoon and the area around it, they learn geography. By reading about the history of the area, and the environmental situation in Brazil today, they develop their Portuguese language. Hiking to gather their water samples provides physical education. Their water analysis teaches them chemistry and biology and mathematics. And they'll use the arts as they prepare their final presentation.

As they do this work, they build skills in interpretation of data, problem analysis, communication, teamwork, problem solving, construction and analysis of graphs, reporting of the results; mathematical calculation, and location in time and space. Their teachers assess their work throughout the process, by monitoring of the project tasks as they complete them, checking the various competencies, skills and capabilities embedded in the tasks, and evaluating the quality of the final presentation, the reasoning ability of the students and the applicability of the presented solution.

Music Game
Stéfani is a student of the technical course on Games Programming, one of the themes that a student can follow as she moves through the three years of high school. She is now on the second year and she is already thinking about her final project.

Stéfani passes the Lagoa Pequena group on her way into school. She immediately meets with her team of three students, who use their tablets to connect to the online Project Bank, and browse for the sub-project they must work on this week. This sub-project is part of a larger project to develop an educational game to teach music.

Each sub-project presents the students with a specific problem to be solved, lists the expected results and sets forth the competencies needed to solve the problem. For this week's task, Stéfani and her colleagues must develop a mathematical algorithm to convert musical notes (do, re, mi…) into audio frequencies.

They have already developed most of the competencies they need to do this: understanding cycles-per-second of sound pressure; reading the history of Heinrich Hertz; dividing he octave into twelve half-tones; and so forth, combining mathematics and physics. 

Today they search the school's online Competency Data Base for the mini-lessons, video clips, and podcasts they need to learn the rest. But the group is confused when they calculate that the interval between middle A (440 Hz) and the A one octave above it (880 Hz) is 440 Hz; but that the next octave interval contains twice that number, or 880 Hz. So Stéfani and her group uses chat software to connect directly to their tutor-teacher, who explains the nature of this logarithmic progression, and points them to an online lesson on this topic.

With the necessary guidance, the students get to work on understanding non-linear mathematical progressions. By the beginning of the afternoon, all of them are feeling confident about the competencies they have just acquired and start to work on the planning to solve the sub-project.

In their planning, the students use the 5W2H (What, When, Where, Why, Who, How, How Much) approach, making it clear which student will be responsible for each activity, when it will be accomplished, and how. Stéfani validates their plan with the group's tutor and starts the development of the solution.

The students are focused on the due date of their presentation of their music-learning game to teachers and classmates on the next will Friday. This motivates them to a self-directed concentration on their goal. And because their second presentation -- their final assessment -- will be made to a local Santa Catarina game company, one that may offer them an internship or job, or even purchase the game they develop, they are highly motivated to do quality work.
Interactive Arts, Inc.
The game company is one of the partners of the SENAI School of the Future, and from the beginning helps the teachers develop the project plan and its sub-projects. They work with SENAI -- often through videoconferencing -- to solve their own real-world problems and, at the same time, to identify students who may become part of their workforce.

On the Guitar 
Every week, the SENAI School of the Future hosts a live musical performance, sometimes by students, sometimes by professionals. Music is an integral part of the curriculum, encouraging the students to be creative, to perfect their skill, to improvise, and to see the connection between music and other subjects such as mathematics and physics.

Today, João is starting an acoustic guitar lesson, along with his friend Maria. Both are working at home; the class is being taught online, through the internet. Before the class meeting, they both used a music-learning game created by other students at the school. This taught them the basics, and allowed them to practice on their own, with self-correction from the game. So they are ready to advance their skill when the class meets.lesson_supplemental.jpg

Their teacher José has been monitoring their progress with the music game over the last week, and now leads the students online to teach them the best practices related to the song. At the end of class, he sends practice activities to the students tablets, as homework, to be presented on the next class meeting.

The musical score for the lesson displays directly on the students' tablets; there are no more printed scores, so it’s environmental friendly. The score was downloaded from an database of musical scores.

João had a question about the nature of the harmony he was supposed to play in one part of his assignment -- in the score, the notes did not seem to match. His teacher José instructs him to search for more information in the learning management system, pointing to some physics concepts that may explain the way the harmony works. In this way, João relates music to other subjects.

Light the Lamp
Several groups of students work on an electrical project, building some of the competencies of an electrician, as well as learning academic content. Not all groups are engaged in the same task; these vary according to the plans and progress of each group, but all lead to the same result: to design a circuit, and and construct the equipment, to control a lamp.

The students work in a distinctive architectural environment, using oval tables with 5 chairs each, that allows a direct interaction amongst the students, as well as hands-on work. The lab equipment, such as electrical benches, lampposts and lamp bulbs are part of the classroom, so the regular classroom is integrated with the lab. It allows that the students interact with the equipment and tools from the first day in the course.

The students use mobile devices such as tablets, laptops, and smartphones connected to a wireless network to access on the cloud the instructions and resources they need to design and then build the circuit. The theoretical knowledge from physics and mathematics necessary to understanding why the bulb provides light, is integrated into the assignment, and available through the learning management system.

The teacher displays a circuit simulator from his tablet to a projection screen, to show the students how to model and test the circuits they plan before they build them. He records this mini-lesson as he presents it, and posts it to the schools library of lessons, which is integrated with the learning management system.

The circuit they plan includes a photovoltaic cell to generate power, a battery to store it, and a digitally-controlled switch to link to the electrical grid when necessary. So the students learn environmental awareness along with their professional skills and academic content. When complete, each group presents its plan, its simulation, and its actual circuit for review by a group of electricians from local industries

This project is carefully designed to build knowledge of electrical power, the mathematical measurement of physical and electrical properties, the operation of common electrical components, and the dimensioning of the actual equipment in the circuit. The assignment is structured so that the students practice and learn skills in the use of tools, the application of technical regulations, and the identification of devices and equipment. As they
work together to complete the work, students learn good attitudes toward safety, the conservation of resources, the optimization of energy, and interpersonal cooperation. Each of these competencies is assessed, either by a test in the learning management system, or by the observation of a teacher.

Erosion
A problem situation is presented to a group of five students: erosion in areas of irregular settlements (slopes). The problem, as well as the criteria for the solution that the students must develop, are set forth clearly in the learning management system.

From the information the students have at their disposal, many alternative solutions are possible. The steps to develop the solution are also listed in the LMS, which call for the students to use and develop knowledge of earth science, social sciences, and economics from many sources; learn new skills and attitudes about housing, class, and law; and conduct group meetings as well as individual work. As they work, a teacher is assigned to support the group in the classroom, and to teach them how to use a variety of online collaborative work tools such as web conferencing.

After the preparation of an initial draft, the students present their solution to the stakeholders (teachers, fellow students, public sector, and businesspeople). Teachers and stakeholders assess the presentation using a checklist of results drawn from the LMS. From this assessment, the teachers send a feedback to the students, whom may: (i) re-do part of their work, (ii) complete their work or (iii) send the result of their work to a data base where this work can serve as a reference to other future projects.

Distance Teaching
A teacher from the SENAI School for Learning is sent to Australia by the company for which he works, to participate in a training session about new technologies. In order to fulfill his teaching responsibilities while he is away, he has planned a series of videoconferences with his students, that will enable them to keep up with their studies as well as learn about the new Australian technologies.

At SENAI, the students arrive early to coincide with the end of the working day in Australia. As they gather around the videoconference screen, they see their teacher engaged with some new engineering equipment, working in a small group with two Australians, and african, and a French woman. They show the students how the 3D printer links directly to the AutoCAD file and can produce a model in less than a minute. Students ask questions, take notes on their tablets, and engage in discussion as they watch the model take form.

When he returns, the teacher continues the study of the 3d printing technology with his students at SENAI. Students have not lost a minute of class time to accommodate their teacher's travel; in fact, their coursework has been enhanced by the trip.

At SENAI School of the Future, we make the best of everyone's time, both teachers and students; digital technologies enable teachers to travel and learn new techniques while at the same time fulfilling all of their teaching responsibilities. Teachers and students need no be in the same room to learn from each other.
SENAI
School of the Future
Education 3.0
• Academic and Professional
• Business and Industry
• Real-World Problems
• Student Responsibility
•Network technologies
What you have seen is just a glimpse of a day in the life at the SENAI school of the future. There’s much more going on, in the classrooms, behind the scenes, and
in the students’ minds. At the SENAI school of the future, we see few traditional lessons or lectures taught by the teachers. All the students’ projects and tasks are
posted and carried out through the Learning Management System, which connects to a rich knowledge data base of texts, animations, simulations, games,
podcasts, and videos. Students, teachers, and their work are linked by a digital network that helps them get their work done.