Study of Teacher Practices in Health Sciences in Brazil

This study involved fourteen semistructured interviews with teaching staff at a Brazilian university. These interviews were aimed at unveiling possible transformations caused by distance education in classroom teaching and in medical assistance practices. The discourses collected were analyzed using qualitative methods and divided into groups with convergent meanings, resulting in the following units: Infrastructure, Personal Use of Information Technology Resources, Impressions of Distance Education, Intensity of Dedication, Interactivity, Benefits of Distance Education, Teaching Practices, and Changes in Assistance. Results suggest that virtual teaching has resulted in positive changes in the professor-student relationship that allow improvements in interactivity and the creation of different expectations from those observed in classroom practice. There was a significant appropriation of the technological resources and pedagogical activities used in online courses for classroom teaching practice. Also observed was the transfer of knowledge to the personal and medical assistance spheres.