Andragogy as a Knowledge Driving Discipline in Higher Education

This paper exposes the diachronic (historical overview) of Andragogy (or Adult Education) and its introduction as a discipline in the context of university education. Based on the andragogical principles of the adult thought process and the work experience, this study sets out Adult Education as an education option to be implemented in higher education, in Costa Rica, to develop cognitive and meta-cognitive competencies in the university students, in the different academic areas simultaneously, by reproducing the Socratic maieutics, which is structured within the Kolb’s experiential learning cycle.

¿Equidad de género en la enseñanza de las Matemáticas?

Recibido 02 de setiembre de 2011 • Aceptado 23 de febrero de 2012 • Corregido 21 de marzo de 2012    La enseñanza de las Matemáticas se ha visto influenciada por la presencia de ciertos estereotipos que han determinado el comportamiento y afectado el rendimiento del estudiantado en dicha disciplina. Diversas investigaciones han señalado la relación de inequidad que hombres y mujeres poseen respecto a las matemáticas y la responsabilidad que el profesorado tiene en su construcción. Por tal motivo se plantea la necesidad de llevar a cabo acciones concretas que permitan la construcción de relaciones de equidad en dicha disciplina, basadas en los principios de respeto, solidaridad y ayuda mutua entre los géneros.

Building the Commercial Education Professional Competency Profile

This paper provides a complete description of the Commercial Education Professional Competency Profile that resulted from the curricular diagnosis of the Licenciatura en Educación Comercial , at the Universidad Nacional, Costa Rica.  The methodological strategy used relies on the principles of research on education. Upon expert validation, written questionnaires were applied to first-year students, students of the licenciatura, practicing professionals and employers. The objective was to describe a particular education situation. Data was analyzed according to two categories: intentions/principles and scope/development. The findings resulted in the characteristics of the Commercial Education professionals, i.e. characteristics related to the discipline, characteristics related to the administrative management of teaching, specific and general characteristics of education and pedagogy, and characteristics associated to human development. Based on those criteria, on the curricular requirements of the information sources and on the curricular perspectives of the Academic Unit, ideas were put into practice to build the competency profile. The ideas proposed comprise the curricular fundamentals of the educational project on which the profile is set out, which include the subject of the study program, the global competency or training goal, the generic competencies as cross-cutting approaches, as well as the –pedagogical and disciplinary− specific competencies. The specific competencies of the discipline are focused on four competency areas: document production, organizational support, technological resources and information management.(1) Translator’s Note: One-year post-Bachelor study program in Commercial Education.