Educational characteristics of adult students in portuguese technological schools

Despite a massive expansion of education in Portugal, since the 1970’s, educational attainment of the adult population in the country remains low. The numbers of working-age people in some form of continuing education are among the lowest, according to the OECD and EU-27 statistics. Technological Schools(TS), initially created in the 1990’s, under the umbrella of the Ministry of Economy in partnership with industry and industrial associations, aimed to prepare qualified staff for industries and services in the country, particularly in the engineering sector, through the provision of post secondary non-university programmes of studies, the CET (Technological Specialization Courses). Successful CET students are awarded a DET(Diploma of Technological Specialization), which corresponds to Vocational Qualification level IV of the EU, according to the latest alteration (2005) of the Education Systems Act (introduced in 1986). In this, CET’s are also clearly defined as one of the routes for access to Higher Education (HE), in Portugal. The PRILHE (Promoting Reflective and Independent Learning in Higher Education) multinational project, funded by the European Socrates Grundtvig Programme, aimed to identify the learning processes which enable adult students in higher education to become autonomous reflective learners and search best practices to support these learning processes. During this research, both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to determine how students organise their studies and develop their learning skills. The Portuguese partner in the project’ consortium used a two case studies approach, one with students of Higher Education Institutions and other with students of TS. This paper only applies to students of TS, as these have a predominant bias towards engineering. Results show that student motivation and professional teaching support contribute equally to the development of an autonomous and reflective approach to learning in adult students; this is essential for success in a knowledge economy, where lifelong learning is the key to continuous employment.

Relatório de estágio de qualificação profissional

Relatório EPE - Relatório de estágio em Educação Pré-Escolar: O presente relatório de estágio tem como propósito principal refletir, criticamente, acerca de todo o percurso realizado no contexto educativo de Educação Pré-Escolar, no âmbito da Unidade Curricular (UC) de Prática Pedagógica Supervisionada (PPS), inserida no Mestrado em Educação Pré-escolar (PE) e Ensino do 1º Ciclo do Ensino Básico (1ºCEB). O trabalho desenvolvido teve como objetivo o desenvolvimento de competências profissionais associadas ao saber agir em ação, exigindo um quadro concetual rigoroso, adaptado às características do nível educativo e do contexto. Para tal, foi necessária uma atitude profissional indagadora e investigativa, critica e reflexiva, que permitisse agir com intencionalidade pedagógica. Neste sentido, os processos educativos e formativos desenvolvidos ao longo de todo o semestre, centraram-se numa metodologia de investigação-ação, caracterizada por uma espiral de ciclos de observação, planificação, ação, avaliação e reflexão, tendo em conta diferentes dimensões pedagógicas. Todos estes processos foram devidamente articulados com referentes teóricos e legais, sendo feito um enquadramento a esse nível, com vista a compreender a base de sustentação das práticas da mestranda. Evidencia-se a conceção de criança e o papel fundamental, não só do educador, mas também de todos os intervenientes do processo educativo, no sentido de estimular e motivar a criança para a construção das suas próprias aprendizagens, destacando-se, assim, uma visão socio construtivista da aprendizagem, transversal a todos os processos referidos. Todas as ações desenvolvidas permitiram analisar o percurso da formanda e o desenvolvimento das suas competências profissionais, não só relacionadas com a prática, mas também direcionadas para quadros concetuais mais alargados.

Relatório de Estágio da Prática Pedagógica Supervisionada

No âmbito da Unidade Curricular de Prática Pedagógica Supervisionada, parte integrante do plano de estudos do Mestrado em Educação Pré-escolar, foi solicitada a elaboração do Relatório de Estágio que evidenciasse a prática e a aprendizagem profissional desenvolvida nos contextos de Creche e de Educação Pré-Escolar. Neste sentido, a mestranda expõe o seu percurso nas duas valências, tendo este permitido o conhecimento e posterior desenvolvimento de saberes e competências em prol da construção e edificação de um perfil na profissão docente, suportado por um quadro teórico e concetual. A prática pedagógica da mestranda desenvolveu-se mediante uma aproximação à metodologia de investigação-ação, assente sobre quatro etapas fundamentais: observação, planificação, ação e reflexão/avaliação. Esta metodologia, suporte basilar da sua prática, possibilita a articulação entre saberes e atitudes, culminando numa co construção de saberes entre os diversos atores envolvidos na prática pedagógica. Os contextos e processos de estágio revelaram-se cruciais nos processos educativos de qualidade na educação de infância, no que concerne ao desenvolvimento de competências para a educação, constituindo estes, bases importantes na formação docente. Por fim, a mestranda está consciente que para responder aos desafios advindos da sociedade atual, deve procurar a formação constante, atualizando e desenvolvendo novas aprendizagens, quer a nível pessoal, quer a nível profissional.

Defining and Classifying Learning Outcomes: A case study

Bologne came to globalize education in higher education, creating a unified architecture that potentiates higher education and enhances the continued interconnection of the spaces of education policy in higher education in the world, in particular in Europe. The aim of this work consists in the presentation of an identification model and skills’ classification and learning outcomes, based on the official documents of the course units (syllabus and assessment components) of a course of Higher Education. We are aware that the adoption of this model by different institutions, will contribute to interoperability learning outcomes, thus enhancing the mobility of teachers and students in the EHEA (European Higher Education Area) and third countries.

Reverse problem-based learning - a case study with a Braille machine

Engineering Education includes not only teaching theoretical fundamental concepts but also its verification during practical lessons in laboratories. The usual strategies to carry out this action are frequently based on Problem Based Learning, starting from a given state and proceeding forward to a target state. The possibility or the effectiveness of this procedure depends on previous states and if the present state was caused or resulted from earlier ones. This often happens in engineering education when the achieved results do not match the desired ones, e.g. when programming code is being developed or when the cause of the wrong behavior of an electronic circuit is being identified. It is thus important to also prepare students to proceed in the reverse way, i.e. given a start state generate the explanation or even the principles that underlie it. Later on, this sort of skills will be important. For instance, to a doctor making a patient?s story or to an engineer discovering the source of a malfunction. This learning methodology presents pedagogical advantages besides the enhanced preparation of students to their future work. The work presented on his document describes an automation project developed by a group of students in an engineering polytechnic school laboratory. The main objective was to improve the performance of a Braille machine. However, in a scenario of Reverse Problem-Based learning, students had first to discover and characterize the entire machine's function before being allowed (and being able) to propose a solution for the existing problem.

TRAILER project overview: tagging, recognition and acknowledgment of informal learning experiences

The evolution of new technology and its increasing use, have for some years been making the existence of informal learning more and more transparent, especially among young and older adults in both Higher Education and workplace contexts. However, the nature of formal and non-formal, course-based, approaches to learning has made it hard to accommodate these informal processes satisfactorily, and although technology bring us near to the solution, it has not yet achieved. TRAILER project aims to address this problem by developing a tool for the management of competences and skills acquired through informal learning experiences, both from the perspective of the user and the institution or company. This paper describes the research and development main lines of this project.

Modelling an e-learning environment for learning programming languages

It is widely accepted that solving programming exercises is fundamental to learn how to program. Nevertheless, solving exercises is only effective if students receive an assessment on their work. An exercise solved wrong will consolidate a false belief, and without feedback many students will not be able to overcome their difficulties. However, creating, managing and accessing a large number of exercises, covering all the points in the curricula of a programming course, in classes with large number of students, can be a daunting task without the appropriated tools working in unison. This involves a diversity of tools, from the environments where programs are coded, to automatic program evaluators providing feedback on the attempts of students, passing through the authoring, management and sequencing of programming exercises as learning objects. We believe that the integration of these tools will have a great impact in acquiring programming skills. Our research objective is to manage and coordinate a network of eLearning systems where students can solve computer programming exercises. Networks of this kind include systems such as learning management systems (LMS), evaluation engines (EE), learning objects repositories (LOR) and exercise resolution environments (ERE). Our strategy to achieve the interoperability among these tools is based on a shared definition of programming exercise as a Learning Object (LO).

The European Project Semester at ISEP: Learning to Learn Engineering

The European Project Semester at ISEP (EPS@ISEP) is a one semester project-based learning programme addressed to engineering students from diverse scientific backgrounds and nationalities. The students, organized in multicultural teams, are challenged to solve real world multidisciplinary problems, accounting for 30 ECTU. The EPS package, although focused on project development (20 ECTU), includes a series of complementary seminars aimed at fostering soft, project-related and engineering transversal skills (10 ECTU). This paper presents the study plan, resources, operation and results of the EPS@ISEP that was created in 2011 to apply the best engineering education practices and promote the internationalization of ISEP. The results show that the EPS@ISEP students acquire during one semester the scientific, technical and soft competences necessary to propose, design and implement a solution for a multidisciplinary problem.

Learning Sustainability with EPS@ISEP – Development of an Insectarium

8th International Symposium on Project Approaches in Engineering Education (PAEE)

Learning Sustainability with EPS@ISEP – Development of a Water Disinfection System

Proceedings of the 8th International Symposium on Project Approaches in Engineering Education (PAEE), Guimarães, 2016