ACTIVE METHODOLOGIES AND THE DEBATE ON TECHNOLOGY, SUSTAINABILITY, AND SOCIETY

THE EXPERIENCE OF THE SIMULATED JURY IN THE COMPUTER SCIENCE COURSE

Abstract

Abstract: This article analyzes the use of the mock trial methodology in the Information Systems and Society course, taught in the Computer Science program at the Unifanor Wyden University Center, in a class composed of first-semester students. The proposal was developed as a pedagogical strategy to stimulate critical thinking, oral argumentation, ethical reflection, and interdisciplinarity in a humanities discipline within a course traditionally focused on exact sciences. The mock trial's central theme was market logic and its social, economic, and environmental implications. The class was divided into groups of prosecution, defense, and jury, and a formal debate was structured with specific rules of argumentation, rebuttal, and rejoinder. The investigation is qualitative in nature, based on bibliographic research and descriptive analysis of the pedagogical experience carried out in the classroom. The theoretical framework draws on authors from the humanities and sustainability fields, such as Paulo Freire, Edgar Morin, Zygmunt Bauman, Karl Polanyi, Leonardo Boff, and Enrique Leff. The results demonstrate that the activity contributed to expanding students' argumentative capacity, promoting active participation, developing communication skills, and stimulating critical reflections on economic development, social inequality, and sustainability. It is concluded that the simulated jury constitutes an effective active methodology for bringing Computer Science students closer to contemporary social issues, favoring a more humanistic and critical education.

Keywords: Mock trial. Active learning methodologies. Sustainability. Higher education. Computing.