USEWRITE: Useful Writing Techniques to Improve High-School Students`Descriptive Writing

Se analizan y recomiendan algunas técnicas de redacción, para promover la escritura de párrafos descriptivos, entre estudiantes de secundaria o principiantes. El estudio parte de los resultados obtenidos en una investigación llevada a cabo en un colegio del distrito de Pérez Zeledón (Costa Rica). Se propone una secuencia de técnicas fundamentadas en el enfoque de escritura equilibrada, el enfoque de escritura guiada, la redacción como proceso, las estrategias del aprendizaje, los estilos de aprendizaje y la teoría de inteligencias múltiples. Composition techniques designed to promote the writing of descriptive paragraphs by high school students are analyzed and recommended. This study is based on the results gathered from research conducted in a high school located in the district of Pérez Zeledón (Costa Rica). A proposal of a sequence of techniques has been developed, applying the Balanced Approach, the Guided Writing Approach, Process Approach, Leaming Strategies, Leaming Styles, and Multiple Intelligences Theory.

Contributions of Neuroscience to Develop Teaching Strategies and Learning of Mathematics

The goal of the present work is to develop some strategies based on research in neurosciences that contribute to the teaching and learning of mathematics. The interrelationship of education with the brain, as well as the relationship of cerebral structures with mathematical thinking was discussed. Strategies were developed taking into consideration levels that include cognitive, semiotic, language, affect and the overcoming of phobias to the subject. The fundamental conclusion was the imperative educational requirement in the near future of a new teacher, whose pedagogic formation must include the knowledge on the cerebral function, its structures and its implications to education, as well as a change in pedagogy and curricular structure in the teaching of mathematics.

El desarrollo de foros estudiantiles como estrategia para fortalecer la enseñanza de la Cívica. La experiencia del Primer Foro Regional de Gobiernos Estudiantiles

With the implementation of the new Civics Syllabi, new expectations are opened so that the civil education is approached in a more integral way. This will let the teachers explore different techniques to develop their students´ citizenship competences, in order for them to join a society where local, national and global participation allow them to take relevant and committed attitudes. The execution of the Regional Students´ Government Forums is an example on how education contributes to create opportunities for leading students, so that they can have spaces to reflect, give their opinions and offer solutions to the problems that society is facing, and that at the same time, in the future they will be assumed by these students when they have their full citizenship.