THE TEACHING LEARNING PROCESS IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND SOCIAL INCLUSION: THE CASA DE CÁRITAS EXPERIENCE

Abstract

In an effort to contribute to the discussion about leaning through experience or in practice, the objective of this paper is to demonstrate the teaching/learning process used in the project management discipline based on the effective execution of a social project by the students of a management graduate course in southern Brazil. The theoretical foundations are based on learning techniques that focus on the acquisition of more comprehensive knowledge through experience in troubleshooting real problems (schön, 2000a; 2000b; perrenoud, 2002; mitre et al., 2008). The method comprised the application of the teaching-learning methodology described by the authors, which may be summarized as defining the institution to be helped (here, the Casa de Cáritas), drawing up an action plan to meet the demands identified, carrying out these actions alongside a respective monitoring process, and complying with the project management best practices proposed by the pmi (2008). In addition to the experience itself, the paper highlights the project’s results, the lessons learned by the students and reveals the social character of this kind of initiative.