School of Inclusion: The Contribution of a Federal University to the Inclusive Education

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1 ADVANCES IN EDUCATION VOL.1, NO.2 APRIL 2012 ISSN X 4 School of Inclusion: The Contribution of a Federal University to the Inclusive Education Cristina M.C. Delou a*, Sídio Machado a, Isabelle Mazza-Guimarães a, Lourena Marinho a, Ruth Mariani a, Karin Vasconcelos b, Carlos R. Rodrigues b, Helena C. Castro a,b* a Programa de Pós-graduação em Biologia das Interações (PPBI), b LABiEMol, GCM, Instituto de Biologia, Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF), ZIP.: , Niterói, RJ. Abstract - Currently Brazilian educators need to attend all students including those with special needs to guarantee enforcement of the Brazilian law that states that everyone has the right to education and social integration. However the lack of information and training about how properly attending this public is still one of the main obstacles for the Brazilian professors and teachers. In this work we described the creation of The School of Inclusion as a program of a Brazilian Federal University, whose actions articulate not only different academic areas (e.g. human rights, education and health) but also teachers and undergraduates, encouraging them to create new educational technologies as well as conditions for social changes and school adjustment. The main objective of this program is not only training teachers and undergraduates, by creating three spaces involving Braille, Signal Brazilian Language (LIBRAS) and Production of educational technology, but also to multiply trainers who can create conditions to themselves and to others. Index Terms - school enrollment, teachers, training, Braille; inclusive education. I I. INTRODUCTION n Brazil, the Special Education is a mode of education offered preferentially in the regular education for students with special needs [1]. The Brazilian Law of Guidelines and Bases of National Education (LDB, Law No. 9394/96 Chapter V) determines that, when required, specialist support services should be provided in regular schools to meet students with special needs; including the special education, specialized schooling work in classes, schools or specialized services, when it is not possible their integration into regular classes in regular schools. The law also considers that the special education is a constitutional duty of the state, starting at the age of zero to six years, during early education. Currently Brazil has fully trained teachers to get a higher teaching capacity. However there are those without training and/or understanding of dealing with student diversity. Since 1996, there are a lot of efforts for training teachers at Manuscript received April 7, This work was supported in part by CAPES, CNPq, FAPERJ, FOPESQ-UFF and PROEX-UFF. H.C.C. and C.M.C.D. are from Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil (corresponding authors phone: and ; hcastrorangel@yahoo.com.br and cristinadelou@globo.com ). universities and institutes of higher education [2]. According to reference [3], LDB reinforces higher education as the desirable level for teaching activities. However a minimum qualification is still accepted for early childhood education and in early years of elementary school in Brazil, given the regional peculiarity. Thus, due to its continental size, the Brazilian current educational need of people able to teach is still greater than the efficiency and speed in teacher s preparation and training and/or in guarantees their access to higher education. To ensure a teacher training focused on diversity and inclusion, Brazilian guidelines established the necessary aspects for teacher training in Teacher undergraduate Courses at universities [2]. These guidelines emphasize that those professionals should: a) guide and mediate instruction for students learning with success responsibility, b) assume, know and deal with diversity, c) encourage curriculum enrichment activities, e) prepare and execute projects to develop curricula, f) use new methodologies, strategies and support materials, and g) develop collaboration and teamwork behaviors [1-3]. In 2005, the reference [5] reported the views of teachers and principals about Inclusive Education. It revealed the teacher s awareness about the importance of the inclusion of people with disabilities in the Brazilian educational system [5]. Importantly, according to these professionals they need help from experts as they are not properly prepared for including these students. These teachers pointed that administrative authorities must take steps, together with educators, parents and society to provide the education for individuals with disabilities suited to their specific needs. This view was also detected by reference [3] in which the teachers in the regular school reported: They (students with special needs) require an attention that we are unable to give, [...] We are not prepared enough to do a job with very positive results [...] There is much to do in the teachers training courses. [...] Twenty years of implementation of the inclusion paradigm in Brazilian society show that teacher training is complex in this context. There are not enough faculty and training staff to deal with the diversity that involve different types of disabilities, including developmental disorders and even high

2 ADVANCES IN EDUCATION VOL.1, NO.2 APRIL 2012 ISSN X 5 ability/gifted people. However, the inclusion has gained strength from political and social demands of these groups who until recently had no rights or recognition by social policies. In defense of inclusive approaches, important national [6-14] and international authors [15-19] have been concerned about this topic. The Brazilian Federal Fluminense University has a total of 20 undergraduate degree courses to train teachers in different areas (Sciences, Social Sciences, Physical Education, Nursing, Philosophy, Physics, Geography, History, Literature - Portuguese, German, Spanish, French, Greek, English, Italian and Latin, Mathematics, Pedagogy, Psychology and Chemistry). Among them, only Pedagogy and Biological Sciences undergraduate courses offer disciplines (mandatory discipline and optional discipline respectively) specific for teaching inclusive practices. In fact, there are no other discipline for dealing with students with disabilities (intellectual, visual, hearing, deaf-blindness, physical or multiple), developmental disorders or high ability/giftedness. Due to the Brazilian demand for teachers with an inclusive profile, in this work we described the creation of a university extension program, called School of Inclusion, which aims to train and in(form) graduates and undergraduates in the educational inclusion area with an innovation view. each of the six points used for writing Braille, styrofoam plates, bottle caps (for simulating six points), and a banner containing the alphabet and other Braille notations. The topic involving visually impaired limited mobility and spatiality is also worked (Fig. 1). II. METHODOLOGY Each new edition of the School of Inclusion offers at least 60 vacancies for undergraduate students, teachers and graduate students. The enrollment of this program is performed online and the program occurs during one whole week. On the first day of School of Inclusion, all applicants are initially united in a large classroom where the objectives, methodology, and expected results are presented. After this presentation, the group is divided into four classes of 20 students previously established and distributed. All four short courses are offered with no need of pre-knowledge. Applicants also receive a schedule about the distribution of classrooms, intending to avoid moving all the educational materials but the students. It is worth noticing that the methodology of the program, defined as a pro-active school, predicts that each group is attended in a rotation mode of classrooms, moving at the end of each class to the next course. The School of Inclusion includes simultaneous four short courses (1-4) including 1) Braille, 2) The Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS), 3) Production of Accessible Instructional Materials and 4) Update on Inclusive Education, which underlie the new pedagogical practices (Fig. 1-4). Each classroom is set according to the specific content of the course and contains all the necessary materials for teaching and learning. For the dynamics of class, all the necessary materials are available presenting different objectives and preestablished goals: 1) The Braille course: for the development of teaching techniques we use three sets of six hoops, which correspond to Fig. 1. Material used by students in the Braille room. (A) 3 sets with 3 pairs of hoops (simulating the 6 points Braille system), and (B) puncture slates and styrofoam plates and bottle caps (simulating the 6 points Braille system), (C) Banner containing the alphabet and (D) Experience in the perspective of visual impairment. The Braille course is designed to work with the spelling including understanding the symbolism and producing texts and some teaching materials using this type of writing. The student does not present major difficulties in learning Braille writing since it refers coding a language already known (Portuguese). 2) LIBRAS course: it is based on using significant space for body expression, TV and DVD player for viewing films about deaf people trajectory and difficulties faced by those with deafness and/or blindness (deaf-blindness). In this course the students can learn some words and expressions, but as in any other language course, it is impossible to learn everything in one week. Therefore, the course intends to change a "not knowing anything about it" person to knowing something to achieve a level of competence and begin a dialogue. The fact that the deaf teacher is responsible for the LIBRAS classes ensures the social empowerment of the deaf who is not yet a common part of the permanent staff of the Brazilian universities (Fig. 2).

3 ADVANCES IN EDUCATION VOL.1, NO.2 APRIL 2012 ISSN X 6 4) Update course on Inclusive Education: it is taught by a specialist teacher and the dynamics ensures the discussion about most important issues involving legal, social, educational and humanitarian questions. At the end of each course, it is offered to all students the opportunity to practice everything they ve learned by granting 20 more certified hours, if they present an inclusive teaching material within 30 days. These materials are tested by blind student(s) that analyze the difficulties and quality for teaching the proposed theme. At the end of each edition of the School of Inclusion all students are invited to do an evaluation. The main objective is to detect not only the positive but also the negative aspects that may be changed and/or improved. Fig. 2. Material used by students in the class of Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS). (A) Body expression, (B) Films and audiovisual materials about deaf people and their problems, and (C) Interactive exercises on the perspectives of deafness (D) and deaf-blindness. 3) Production of Inclusive Educational Technology course (Accessible Instructional Materials): on that purpose we use media equipment (computer and data show), materials produced in latter edition of the program presented as models for teaching and skills development (Fig. 3). Fig. 3. Material used by the students in the class of Accessible Instructional Materials. (A) media equipment (computer and data show), (B) materials produced and tested by undergraduate students, teachers and (C-E) materials for skills development (eg. marker on tracing paper, different types of plastic blocks, and other tools for the making of models and three-dimensional models). In A, the former student Ruth Mariani acts as a tutor reporting her previous experience in the last school edition. In the first edition of the program, this course started from the materials produced by Biological Sciences students of the Fluminense Federal University, used as models and starting point for the participants (teachers and students undergraduate). III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION A. School Inclusion: (in)forming to form The School of Inclusion is a program recently created in Federal Fluminense University. The idea is the proposition of a program that may be adopted for presenting any theme and for anyone who wants to offer a view about inclusion and diversity. The program considers the perspective of a teacher/professor, which generally teaches for students who walk, talk, hear, see and comprehend from the simplest to the most complex human processes theme and suddenly, one day, has students who cannot walk and/or speak and/or hear, and/or see or understand as everyone else. What to do? How working with these students? The answers are not simple and/or immediate and may take years of training without proper help. Based on this reflection and on the difficulty of attending students with special needs, the main goal of the School of Inclusion is training undergraduates and graduates for: a) using languages (eg. LIBRAS) and codes (eg. Braille) applicable to individuals who have difficulty on communicating and signaling, b) producing inclusive teaching materials (Educational Technology), c) teaching the target public in formal (public schools and private) and non-formal (museums, cultural centers and home) spaces or at regular school system, governmental or nongovernmental organizations. Therefore, the training offered by the School of Inclusion (40 hours) is free and occurs in a week at least twice a year, usually during school holidays (July) and the academic week of the university (October). Four different short courses including Braille course, LIBRAS course, Accessible Instructional Materials course (Fig. 1-3) and Update course on Inclusive Education are offered to the targeted audience of this program: teachers, graduate students and undergraduate students. They are all attending together so they may exchange their personal experience regarding the program s themes. Another School of Inclusion goal is to train teachers to work on teaching entrepreneurs for getting new social values. This methodology provides training courses on an inclusive perspective, encouraging the entrepreneurship for contributing in the educational technology development. In this perspective

4 ADVANCES IN EDUCATION VOL.1, NO.2 APRIL 2012 ISSN X 7 there are production of accessible instructional materials, and especially the incentive to work proactively with participation of the former students as tutors at next edition of the School to spread the knowledge and/or materials production techniques. At the School of Inclusion, we believe that the knowledge of creating an inclusive material can be further used to train more teachers and undergraduates at same time that prepare these tutors for knowing what questions to ask as well as providing guidelines to help the new students. In fact, since the first edition of school of inclusion, all students who produced new materials are invited to teach about them in the next edition of the Program. A good example is Ruth Mariani, a teacher who first attended the school as a student and became a tutor of the Program on the next editions (Fig. 3 A). The interest of these students on working as tutors validates the program ability to form multipliers. Among the former students who participated as tutors in the School of Inclusion Program, we noticed the presence of: a) skills above average academic skills expressed by evident learning speed in courses of such short period, b) deep involvement with the activities of the School Inclusion with commitment and responsibility with the new classes of undergraduates or professionals, and c) creativity observed in such short time in their own designed accessible materials, applying the knowledge acquired during the school, revealing these students as also different. Interestingly several materials for teaching languages (French and Italian), Geography, History, Chemistry, Geography, Mathematics, physics, and biology have been created (Table I) as well as the interest by the former students on participating as tutors has increased since the first edition (Fig. 4). Fig. 4. Comparison of the number of members enrolled people, certified undergraduates and teachers, and those certified who came back for participating as tutors in the School Inclusion Program. B. The Accessible Instructional Materials and School of Inclusion According to reference 20 "perhaps in no other form of educational teaching the resources assume such importance as in education of visually impaired people." In fact the handling of accessible instructional materials is essential for any student with, or without special needs [20-21]. On that context, several aspects are important including: a) increase the contact with the physical environment, b) decrease the distance from reality and gaps in information acquisition, c) increase motivation for learning, d) exercise logical reasoning and different kinds of perception, e) discriminate the details, f) make the teaching of a specific content accessible especially for deaf, blind, autistic and disabled people. For producing the Accessible Instructional Materials School of Inclusion we also have to consider the type and cost of the material used [20-21]. TABLE I COMPARISON OF ACCESSIBLE INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS AREAS PRODUCED IN THE FIRST YEAR OF IMPLEMENTATION OF SCHOOL OF INCLUSION. Area Name of The Material Target need Matematics Chess Game Adapted for the Blind Textured Puzzle - Logical Block History Chemistry Literature and Languages Pedagogy Tactile Board - World Map Tactile Plate Captain Hereditary Tactile Book - Chemistry in Comics Chemical Adapted Bingo Game Letters Literary Styles - Portuguese / Literature PPT - Sign Language Italian Literature - Port / Italian Memory Game in Braille for teaching French / Portuguese, Literature - Portuguese / French Tic Tac Toe Adapted Textured Memory Game Book of Smell Tactile Memory Game on Signs Tactile Book Ditty Wheel: "Crooked House" Geography Textured Mock Geographic Game What Is The Area? Tactile Board - Theory of Continental Drift and Plate Tectonics Tactile Board - Climate Map of Brazil Tactile Board - Guidance - Wind Rose The use of PowerPoint for teaching (File Model in ppt) Model of the City of Rio de Janeiro Biology Visual Card - Scheme of Cell Di Tactile Atlas - Monera Kingdom Tactile Atlas Human Body Systems Tactile Atlas - The Circulatory System Tactile Book - Cells in Isotonic Media Tactile Atlas - The Digestive System Tactile Signs - Border Rivers Textured Puzzle - Phylum Arthropoda Tactile Model - Embryology Site-Inclusion not Exclusion: how to inform about the inclusive Education Tactile Cell Model Blindness, low and deathness Blindness, low and deathness Blindness, low and deathness Brazilian Sign Language does not present signs for scientific concepts of biology (e.g. ovulation, and plasmatic membrane). Thus, the development of Accessible Instructional Materials in this program may attend the creation of these sign/concepts to use with deaf students. In the first year of the program, thirty-four accessible

5 ADVANCES IN EDUCATION VOL.1, NO.2 APRIL 2012 ISSN X 8 instructional materials about different areas themes were developed mainly targeting blind students (Table I). Back then, the predominance was about biological themes (43%). Disciplines such as Biology and Geography should use extensively images, pictures, graphs, charts, diagrams, maps, among others to complement the theoretical content. On that perspective blind students are at a distinct exclusion situation compared to others, which probably influenced the choice of most students for selecting this public as target. A small number of materials were constructed for deaf students probably due to the difficulties of teaching by using a new language. Since Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS) does not present enough signs to express scientific concepts, the formation of a vocabulary and teaching sign language regarding languages such as Italian Sign Language was one of the material topics (Table I). Importantly monographs about the materials production in the program have been produced in several areas including Biological Sciences, Geography, Mathematics, Education, Chemistry, History, Literature and Psychology. This is important because it stimulates researches in this area and improvement and redesign of these products with highest quality. Thus Again the point is reinforced that the program contains a multiplier, reaching other areas of interest include the topic. C. Students opinion about School of Inclusion Among the numerous graduates and undergraduates opinions collected during the final evaluation step of the program, some clearly pointed to the importance of the School of Inclusion Program on training teachers and on the goals achieved: Student 1 - "[...] The course was very good, giving an overview on how to deal with students with a disability. Now I know better how to deal with this student and I am more able to perform my role as a teacher regardless of who is in my class. " Student 2 "[...] In my opinion the course was very useful, in order to encourage inclusion activities, or alert us to the fact that there are people with different needs that we should attend. For the formation of a teacher it is extremely important to know how to teach a student who has a disability. " Mainly the opinions of the whole group, including teachers, graduate students and undergraduate students, pointed the opportunity of working with this theme as the main positive point of the School of Inclusion. They emphasized the chance of exchanging ideas with one another and their concern of failing with their own students that was overcome after the participation in this program. At the School of Inclusion, future teachers and professionals receive formal and non formal education with the initial tools for turning into practice the knowledge about people with special needs, and for training on how to deal with them. Student 3 "[...] This program was a unique experience for my training. It was an organized event with a well-planned structure. The methodology caught my attention in order to keep students focused and interested, avoid fatigue, even though in such intensive courses. Therefore, I positively evaluated the program with lessons distributed satisfactorily and creatively." Student 4 "[...] During the course I had a real impression on how difficult is to include students with special needs in our schools. I also noticed the lack of information on this subject on undergraduate students and even current teachers of our country. All classes and lectures were very important to our training; we are better able to face the challenge of teaching for these students. [...]" Importantly, the number of former students interested in producing accessible instructional materials after finishing the program (37%) and/or acting as tutors and teaching their own practice (22%) is still considered too low in our point of view (<50 %), as it is an opportunity for continuing their own education (Fig. 4). However, those who have participated as tutor in the program always comeback and want to participate once again. IV. CONCLUSION The role of the university on considering the country demands has been a topic of several analyses [22-23]. It is also a current target for Brazilian government that wants to fulfill all citizens needs. In this work we described School of Inclusion as a university program that may be a model for others to in(form) about different themes, trying to fulfill the demand for a better trained educational professional. There is a large demand not only in Brazil but worldwide for proper teaching of students including those with disabilities, developmental disorders and high ability/giftedness. Thus new courses need to be created for preparing the educational professionals using a feasible and active methodology in a minimum time. Although efforts to encourage the conclusion should be a future target to improve the School of Inclusion program, the interest on participating in the program has grown in all aspects. Our results pointed the potential profile of this program to be used by anyone interested in form people to deal with students with special needs. Overall the students program s opinions revealed that School of Inclusion has achieved its primary goal of in(forming) about people with special needs. It encourages our student s pro-active behavior as it always offers the opportunity of teaching materials production in the School next edition. This is represented by the final opinion of a former student described below: Student 5 "[...] The course was very positive and helpful. First, because it does not consider students with special needs as a poor little pitiful and incapable person. This is important because we generally treat them as unable to learn and

6 ADVANCES IN EDUCATION VOL.1, NO.2 APRIL 2012 ISSN X 9 understand the world. This idea must change especially for teachers dealing with such a student. Second, it addresses the difficults of including special students at regular schools not only physically, which seems to be clear to me now. You have to work with appropriate content methodologies and to do this; you must have dedication and commitment. The methodologies used should guarantee the accessibility of the content for both normal and special students. The contribution of this program is clear on training teachers and aware about the importance of ensuring accessibility for all students. ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors thank our institution UFF, FAPERJ, CNPq, MEC and PROPPi and PROEX-UFF for all financial support and fellowships. REFERENCES [1] BRASIL. Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação Nacional - LDB (Lei n.º 9.394, promulgada em 20 de dezembro de 1996). Disponível no site LEIS/L9394.htm. [2] BRASIL. Conselho Nacional de Educação. Proposta de Diretrizes para a formação inicial de professores da educação básica, em cursos de nível superior. Brasília, maio [3] M. D. PLETSCH A formação de professores para a educação inclusiva: legislação, diretrizes políticas e resultados de pesquisas. Educ. Rev. n.33, pp , [4] I. M. SANT'ANA Educação inclusiva: concepções de professores e diretores. Psicol. estud.v.10, n.2, pp , [5] J. G. S. BUENO. Educação especial brasileira: integração/segregação do aluno diferente 1. ed. SÃO PAULO: EDUC - Editora da PUCSP [6] P. DEMO Educação Inclusiva. Revista Inclusão Social, Brasília: IBICT, v. 3, n. 1, p. 7-8, out. 2007/mar [7] M. T. E. MANTOAN Ensinando a turma toda - as diferenças na escola. Revista Pátio Porto Alegre. RS: Artes Médicas, Ano V, n. 20, Fev/Abr, p.18-28, [8] M. J. S. MAZZOTTA Identidade dos alunos com necessidades educacionais especiais no contexto da política educacional brasileira. Revista Movimento. (7) Niterói, EDUFF. 2000/2003. [9] L. M. MRECH Educação Inclusiva: realidade ou utopia? São Paulo Disponível em 16 de agosto de 2001, no site _ou_utopia.html?f_id_artio=62. Acesso em 25/11/2011. [10] M. P. SANTOS, M. M. PAULINO Inclusão em Educação - Culturas, políticas e práticas. São Paulo: Cortez [11] R. K. SASSAKI Inclusão - construindo uma sociedade para todos. Rio de Janeiro: WVA, [12] J. PACHECO Caminhos para a Inclusão - Um guia para o aprimoramento da equipe escolar. Porto Alegre: Artmed, [13] P. PERRENOUD A Pedagogia na Escola das Diferenças Fragmentos de uma sociologia do fracasso. Porto Alegre, Artmed Ed [14] C. M. C. DELOU Educação Especial na Perspectiva da Educação Inclusiva: 20 anos entre lutas e resistências. III Congresso Brasileiro Psicologia: Ciência e Profissão. São Paulo, CFP e Sistema Conselhos [15] A. KLIN, F. R. VOLKMAR, S. S. SPARROW, Asperger Syndrome. New York, London: The Guilgord Press [16] J. RENZULLI What is this thing called giftedness, and how do we develop it? A twenty-five year perspective. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, v. 23, n. 1, p. 3-54, [17] K. RUNSWICK-COLE Time to end the bias towards inclusive education? British Journal of Special Education [18] S. J. PIJL Preparing teachers for inclusive education: some reflections from the Netherlands. Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs Special. 2010, vol. 10, pp [19] A. HODKINSON Inclusive and special education in the English educational system: historical perspectives, recent developments and future challenges. British Journal of Special Education 2010, vol 37, pp [20] J. B. CERQUEIRA, E. M. B. FERREIRA Recursos Didáticos na Educação Especial. Benjamin Constant, Rio de Janeiro: 2000, vol. 6, n. 15, p [21] F. I. W. OLIVEIRA A Importância dos Recursos Didáticos Adaptados no Processo de Inclusão de Alunos com Necessidades Especiais. Disponível no site aimportanciados recdidaticos.pdf. Acesso em 25/11/2010. [22] A. K. SIGURDARDÓTTIR, School university partnership in teacher education for inclusive education. Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs; 2010, vol. 10, pp [23] R. GLAT, M. D. O PLETSCH O papel da universidade frente às políticas públicas para educação inclusiva. Revista Benjamin Constant, 2004, pp Cristina M.C. Delou PhD in Education Program of Post-Graduate Studies in Education: History and Philosophy of Education, currently History, Politics, Society (EHPS), the Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC-SP/ CAPES 7), Specialist and Master Education State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ/1987), Psychologist and BA in Psychology from the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-RJ/1981). She is currently Associate Professor II of Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF) and coordinates the School of Inclusion Program (funded by PROEXT/MEC/2009 and 2010) and the Program of Assistance to Students with High Abilities / Giftedness. Address: Faculty of Education, Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF), CEP: , Niterói, RJ, Brazil. cristinadelou@globo.com. Sídio Werdes Sousa Machado Graduate in Medicine, Federal University of State Rio de Janeiro (1980), MSc at the Federal University Fluminense (2009) and is currently a Doctoral student in the Pos-Graduate Program in Biology of Interactions (PBBI). He has experience in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and experience in education of blind people. He is currently Associate Professor at the Federal University Fluminense. Address: Laboratory of Antibiotics, Biochemistry, Education, and Molecular Modeling (LABiEMol), Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, Institute of Biology, Federal University Fluminense (UFF), CEP: , Niterói, RJ, Brazil. sidiomac@gmail.com. Isabelle Mazza-Guimarães Graduated in Biological Sciences from the Universidade Federal Fluminense (2008). She is currently a Masters student in the Pos-Graduate Program in Biology of Interactions of the Institute of Biology of the Universidade Federal Fluminense. Address: Pos-Graduate Program in Biology of Interactions, Institute of Biology, Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF), CEP: , Niterói, RJ, Brazil. isabellebio@gmail.com. Lourena Pinheiro Marinho Graduated in Biological Sciences from the Universidade Federal Fluminense (2010). She has experience in the field of Parasitology, with emphasis on Parasitology and Entomology. She pursues post-graduate studies entitled Pos- Graduate Program Biology of Interactions (PBBI). Graduate Program in Biology of Interactions, Institute of Biology, Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF), CEP.: , Niterói, RJ, Brazil. lourena_pm@yahoo.com.br. Ruth Maria Mariani de Oliveira Graduated in Physical Education and experience in education of Deaf people. She is currently a doctoral student and attends post-graduate studies entitled Postgraduate Biology of Interactions (PBBI). Pos-Graduate Program in Biology of Interactions, Institute of Biology, Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF), CEP: , Niterói, RJ, Brazil. ruthmariani@yahoo.com.br Karin Vasconcelos Undergraduate student of Pedagocy Course of the Universidade Federal Fluminense (2011). She has experience in the education of Deaf people as an LIBRAS interpreter. Address: Laboratory of Antibiotics, Biochemistry, Education, and Molecular Modeling (LABiEMol), Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, Institute of Biology, Universidade Federal Fluminense

7 ADVANCES IN EDUCATION VOL.1, NO.2 APRIL 2012 ISSN X 10 (UFF), CEP: , Niterói, RJ, Brazil. Carlos R. Rodrigues Graduate in Pharmacy, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (1991), MSc in Organic Chemistry, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (1995) and Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (1999). He is currently Associate Professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and holds the position of Dean of Planning, Development and Finance. Address: Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Faculty of Pharmacy. Av Carlos Chagas Filho, CCS Building Block K - second floor - Room 50, University City, Zip Code: Rio de Janeiro, RJ - Brazil. Phone: (21) Fax: (21) rangelrodrigues2003@yahoo.com.br. Helena C. Castro Graduate in Pharmacy, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (1991), MSc in Biological Chemistry, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (1995) and PhD (Concentration in Biology and Molecular Modeling in 2000) in Biological Chemistry at the Institute of Biochemistry, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro / Brazil and the University of California at San Francisco / USA and Postdoctoral Fellow in Pharmacology (Pharmacology Biochemistry Concentration and Molecular Biology) at the Faculty of Pharmacy, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. She is currently Associate Professor at the Universidade Federal Fluminense and participates in the Graduate Programs in Biology and Pathology, Universidade Federal Fluminense and as a permanent member in the Graduate Program in Teaching of Biosciences and Health as a collaborator. Address: Laboratory of Antibiotics, Biochemistry, Education, and Molecular Modeling (LABiEMol), Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, Institute of Biology, Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF), CEP: , Niterói, RJ, Brazil. hcastrorangel@yahoo.com.br.