Operanda – Federal University of Santa Catarina

By Helder Gusso, 2022 awardee of an International Development Grant

The Operanda Platform offers Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) related to scientific methods. This platform was developed by the Behavior Analysis Center of Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC, Florianópolis, Brazil) under coordination of professor Helder Lima Gusso. The instructional design of the courses are planned based on Behavior Analysis contributions, such as Personalized System of Instruction (Keller Plan or Brasília Plan) and, especially, Programming of Teaching (a Brazilian contribution developed by Carolina Martuscelli Bori, Sílvio Paulo Botomé and other Brazilian behavior analysts).

This project was created from the identification of the low rate of scientific literacy even among university students and the difficulty that many of them have in comprehending the usage possibilities of the scientific method as the basis for professional exercise, especially when the subject is behavior. Such data highlights the necessity of developing educational programs to better qualify professionals to present scientific behaviors.

Operanda has great potential for expansion and long-term sustainability. It was developed using open software and it is maintained on the server of a Brazilian public University. Each course on this platform is planned and evaluated by a team of graduate and undergraduate students, who were trained on Behavior Analysis and Programming of Teaching on regular university courses taught by professor Gusso.

The eight main educational principles used on Operanda are: (a) emphasis on what the student should be able to do in the real world, (b) consideration of the estimated repertoire of the course’s target audience, (c) active student participation, (d) complete and gradual mastery of knowledge and skills by the student, (e) emphasis on positive reinforcement, (f) use of informative and immediate feedback on the student’s performance, (g) respect for the individual pace of learning, and (h) continuous course improvement based on empirical data (Gusso et al, 2021).

The SABA grant will help Operanda’s development with new updated equipment for the team. The Operanda Platform can be found at https://operanda.sites.ufsc.br