The Contribution of CITs in the Development of New Pedagogical Practices

The active learning methodologies correspond to a new teaching model built and based on the interaction and participation. In this context, we have the Blended Learning, a methodology that combines online ways of learning, by means of Distance Education and traditional. This study aims to present the contribution of the Communication and Information Technologies (CITs) on the application of active learning methodologies. Therefore, it was carried out a Bibliographic and Documental Research in two Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). The first, from a Higher Education Institute, in Brazil, that uses the Blended Learning, in the Flex modality, in which, some subjects are developed on-site and other, online, by means of a Virtual Learning Environment. On it, it is provided, for the students, the content of the subject online, video classes and exercises. Another Virtual Learning Environment presented is the one from University of Harvard, called Interactive Learning Toolkit (ILT) – created by Professor Eric Mazur and his team, for the development of the Teaching Methodology, called Peer Instruction, containing reading activities and exercises to be done before the lesson by the students. We verified that, in the Higher Education Institutes studied that the CITs have contributed for the knowledge transmission, being a support for    the development of active learning methodologies, as in the Peer Instruction case, that uses the data obtained from the online activities to teach, in class, the knowledge in a collaborative way.