Aquàriums i educació : una evolució paral·lela

Com es pot fer que la visita a una instal·lació museogràfica sigui informativa, lúdica i a la vegada instructiva? Aquest treball es proposa esbrinar quines orientacions museogràfiques amb finalitat educativa s'han portat a terme en els aquàriums, contextualitzades amb una perspectiva històrica i exemplaritzades en una instal·lació concreta, que és L'Aquàrium de Barcelona.

Didáctica de la Expresión Musical. Una revisión del desarrollo del currículo

[spa] Con el fin de elaborar un estudio sobre la interrelación -o falta de ella- entre práctica educativa e investigación en educación musical, presentamos aquí un estudio de las distintas etapas por las que ha pasado el desarrollo del currículo en educación musical. Además tomamos partido y abogamos por un desarrollo del currículo que tenga en cuenta el contexto educativo-musical, basado en datos provenientes de la investigación educativa, y que preste atención fundamentalmente al plano artístico y estético. Hacemos una apuesta de futuro por un currículo crítico, haciendo por tanto un giro copernicano desde el tradicional interés por el contenido musical hasta la contribución de la música a los objetivos educativos del sistema escolar.

Educar els fills és molt complicat! Els malestars actuals de la socialització familiar

En les diferents recerques sobre la socialització familiar són cada vegada més habituals les referències dels progenitors catalans de classes mitjanes i altes a la complexitat, a les dificultats i a la tensió creixent que implica educar els fills i les filles. Sobre això, i amb la teoria de la civilització de Norbert Elias com a fil conductor, l’article es pregunta pels malestars que actualment travessa la socialització familiar i els posa en relació amb quin és l’objectiu del mateix procés en la nostra societat immersa en un capitalisme financer i flexible. Així, si la finalitat és la «socialització terciària» (Mead, 1964; Bateson, 1984), dins les famílies emergeixen un seguit de neguits i malestars lligats a l’autoritat, l’autonomia, els hàbits, els conflictes i els càstigs, les normes, les convencions i les prohibicions, etc. que, segons el parer de l’autor, cal comprendre dins del nou context social i econòmic i en relació amb els nous objectius de l’educació familiar de les famílies benestants catalanes.

Open Educational Resources: an opportunity for virtual learning institutions

The Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC, Open University of Catalonia) is involved inseveral research projects and educational activities related to the use of Open Educational Resources (OER). Some of the discussed issues in the concept of OER are research issues which are being tackled in two EC projects (OLCOS and SELF). Besides the research part, the UOC aims at developing a virtual centre for analysing and promoting the concept of OERin Europe in the sector of Higher and Further Education. The objectives are to makeinformation and learning services available to provide university management staff,eLearning support centres, faculty and learners with practical information required to create, share and re-use such interoperable digital content, tools and licensing schemes. In the realisation of these objectives, the main activities are the following: to provide organisationaland individual e-learning end-users with orientation; to develop perspectives and useful recommendations in the form of a medium-term Roadmap 2010 for OER in Higher and Further Education in Europe; to offer practical information and support services about how to create, share and re-use open educational content by means of tutorials, guidelines, best practices, and specimen of exemplary open e-learning content; to establish a larger group ofcommitted experts throughout Europe and other continents who not only share theirexpertise but also steer networking, workshops, and clustering efforts; and to foster and support a community of practice in open e-learning content know-how and experiences.

Use of open educational resources at the UOC

The Open University of Catalonia (UOC: Universitat Oberta de Catalunya) is currently implementing its 2009-2014 Strategic Plan, which devotes an entire section to open educational resources. The working group on this topic is drafting a report that establishes the objectives to be met, analyses the current lay of the land and sets out the actions required to meet the objectives. This paper examines each of these three points.

Aproximació al disseny de procediments i instruments per a la personalització de l'ensenyament a l'etapa primària des d'una perspectiva inclusiva

The main objective of this research is to found a new process about the personalization's curriculum for pupils with especial educational needs. In this research there are two objectives: the first objective is to describe a procedure for to do the individual planning for this pupils. This procedure is called "Procediment per cartes de personalització" (Pedragosa 2002). The other objective is centered to validate this procedure for teachers who are in active service in primary's etapa and to check if it's a good process for to do the individual planning in an inclusive approach. The procedure's cobcretion is about three basic referents: In the first, we consult with the current regulations, in the second we incorporate the inclusion's approach and the fundamentals of universal learning design, and finally we consult Ruiz's (1999) provides. We obtain the information for the research until, during and after of the formation's course (in 2003/2004). We introduced two questionnaire (until and after of formation sessions) and we register all of the sessions with a parlimentary report. About the main research results we can to affirm that the procedure is a good option for the professional's practice. It's an organized, ordered and coherent design with our curriculum. But, in spite of, we can to probate that there some interesting variables which are to influence to the procedure's efficiency.

Una Aproximació a la construcció significativa del coneixement matemàtic a l'ESO

This study displays and analyzes the contents of the Mathematics subject in ESO’s second cycle from a constructivist perspective. This analysis has been carried out by contrasting two groups of participants (control group and experimental group). These groups were formed by a sample of 240 students between the ages of 14 and 16 from four different educational centres of the Osona area. Research – Action methodology has been employed, combining quantitative techniques (statistical study with the SPSS package) with qualitative analysis (transcriptions of interviews and discussion group). This study has been carried out after years of classroom observation, reflection and action. The theoretical framework employed is a cognitive one, based on Ausubel’s Significative Learning Theory. Quantitative analysis shows how the researcher’s design improves, on the one hand, the students’ academic motivation and, on the other hand, their comprehensive memory, enabling them to achieve a more significant learning of the subjects’ contents. Furthermore, our analysis shows that the proposed method is more comprehensive than those employed by teachers collaborating with control groups. The main aim of the qualitative analysis is that of identifying the elements which configure the programme and contribute to an improvement of the aspects mentioned above. The key elements here are: co-operation as the basis of group dynamics; the employment, in some cases, of easily handled materials; the type of interaction between teacher and students, where, through open discussion, students are lead by teaching staff towards the course objectives; induction, that is, deducing formulae by initially using examples which are close to the students’ knowledge and experience or taken from everyday life (what we could call “down-top” mathematics). We should add here that the qualitative analysis does not only corroborate the results obtained by quantitative techniques, but also displays an increase of motivation in teaching staff. Teachers did show a positive attitude and welcomed the use and development of these materials in the next academic year. Finally, we discuss possible directions for further research.

Identificació de components inclusius en alguns centres escolars d'educació infantil i primària de la comarca d'Osona

The present essay –which is a pilot study conceived to continue the research in depth in the future- is based in a comparative analysis of educational practice between five different primary and pre-school teaching centres in Osona and the educational practice in inclusive educational centres. The essay introduces the objectives of the research and the theoretical and conceptual framework in which it is based (chapter 1) in relation with the main themes and expressions which are the purpose of the study: comprensivity, inclusive school and inclusive practice. The theoretical framework is linked to the principal regulations applied in our context. The study describes the instruments and procedure analysis describes the instruments and procedure analysis which have been designed and used for a qualitative methodological approach, together with the data obtained from the analysis of five teaching centres (chapter 2). The results from the research show that the practice done in the analised schools are not totally comparable to the ones in the inclusive environment. Notwithsanding, there are some similar points, although not totally coincident, like the fact that either the analysed schools or the ones with an inclusive approach show availability and interest in improving integration of all the pupils in the school, also the teachers work together in some aspects like, evaluation of pupils with special needs, objectives and contents and activities fort he specific kind of pupils with special needs parents and the majority of the analyzed schools, like those fallowing inclusive educational approaches, try the pupils with special needs to develop their acquisition within the ordinary class with adapted material. I think, these verifications, some of them close to inclusive educational practice, could constitute a starting point to analyse our model, in order to offer a common curriculum that could respect the different styles and rhythms of acquisition of all the pupils, so that promoting a more flexible and open schooling. In conclusion, the results of this analysis, although dues to its limits, they can not be generalized, they can help to find the necessary changes to bet for a qualitative education in a school for everyone.

Perfeccionamiento de las metodologías docentes en la enseñanza de la construcción mixta en grado y postgrado en la Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña (UPC) y la Universidad de Camaguey (UC)

Estudio elaborado a partir de una estancia en la Universitat Polictecnica de Cataluña entre marzo i junio del 2007.El proyecto tiene como objetivo general el perfeccionamiento de las metodologías docentes en la enseñanza de la construcción mixta en grado y postgrado en la Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña (UPC) y la Universidad de Camagüey (UC), en correspondencia con la situación actual y perspectiva de la normativa europea, española y cubana. En el trabajo se realiza una valoración sobre programas experimentales en estructuras mixtas y sus resultados, así como su interrelación con la modelación numérica. Se evalúa la correspondencia entre las normativas europeas, española y cubana y se definen los aspectos específicos que deben ser perfeccionados o complementados en la normatividad vigente en Cuba, así como la estrategia general para acometerlo. Para caracterizar la enseñanza de la construcción mixta en la UPC y la UC, se parte de la valoración de información sobre asignaturas similares en un grupo seleccionado de universidades y sobre el contexto que sirve de marco al perfeccionamiento. Se realiza el diagnostico del sistema de objetivos, conocimientos y organización metodológica en los programas de grado y postgrado y se ofrecen recomendaciones generales para el perfeccionamiento de la enseñanza de la construcción mixta en la UPC y la UC. Finalmente, se realizan propuestas detalladas para ambas instituciones, para el perfeccionamiento de las metodologías docentes, con enfoques generales similares, respetando los criterios específicos y formatos de cada entorno. Se concibe un sistema integrado de actividades para cada asignatura, lográndose que, a pesar de las particularidades de cada contexto, el enfoque de trabajo sea coincidente en gran medida, lo que favorece la continuidad en las relaciones de colaboración entre ambas instituciones.

The Cultural Olympiad: objectives, programme and development

Working paper analysing the Cultural Olympiad of Barcelona in 1992. This was published as a chapter of the book entitled "Olympic Games, media and cultural exchanges: the experience of the last four summer Olympic Games" and edited by M. Ladrón de Guevara and M. Bardají.

Parental education and family characteristics: educational opportunities across cohorts in Italy and Spain

Drawing on data contained in the 2005 EU-SILC, this paper investigates the disparities in educational opportunities in Italy and Spain. Its main objective is to analyse the predicted probabilities of successfully completing upper-secondary and tertiary education for individuals with different parental backgrounds, and the changes in these probabilities across birth cohorts extending from 1940 to 1980. The results suggest that the disparities in tertiary education opportunities in Italy tend to increase over time. By contrast, the gap in educational opportunity in Spain shows a marked decrease across the cohorts. Moreover, by using an intuitive decomposition strategy, the paper shows that a large part of the educational gap between individuals of different backgrounds is “composed” of the difference in the endowment of family characteristics. Specifically, it seems that more highly educated parents are more able to endow their children with a better composition of family characteristics, which accounts for a significant proportion of the disparities in educational opportunity.

Longer-term impacts of mentoring, educational services, and incentives to learn: evidence from a randomized trial in the United States

This paper is the first to use a randomized trial in the US to analyze the short- and long-term educational and employment impacts of an afterschool program that offered disadvantaged high-school youth: mentoring, educational services, and financial rewards with the objective to improve high-school graduation and postsecondary schooling enrollment. The short-term hefty beneficial average impacts quickly faded away. Heterogeneity matters. While encouraging results are found for younger youth, and when the program is implemented in relatively small communities of 9th graders; detrimental longlived outcomes are found for males, and when case managers are partially compensated by incentive payments and students receive more regular reminders of incentives.

Mentoring, educational services, and economic incentives longer-term evidence on risky behaviors from a randomized trial

This paper is the first to use a randomized trial in the US to analyze the short- and long- term impacts of an afterschool program that offered disadvantaged high-school youth: mentoring, educational services, and financial rewards to attend program activities, complete high-school and enroll in post-secondary education on youths' engagement in risky behaviors, such as substance abuse, criminal activity, and teenage childbearing. Outcomes were measured at three different points in time, when youths were in their late-teens, and when they were in their early- and their latetwenties. Overall the program was unsuccessful at reducing risky behaviors. Heterogeneity matters in that perverse effects are concentrated among certain subgroups, such as males, older youths, and youths from sites where youths received higher amount of stipends. We claim that this evidence is consistent with different models of youths' behavioral response to economic incentives. In addition, beneficial effects found in those sites in which QOP youths represented a large fraction of the entering class of 9th graders provides hope for these type of programs when operated in small communities and supports the hypothesis of peer effects.

Exploring educational mobility in Europe

This paper is concerned with the investigation of the intergenerational mobility of education in several European countries and its changes across birth cohorts (1940-1980) using a new mobility index that considers the total degree of mobility as the weighted sum of mobility with respect to both parents. Moreover, this mobility index enables the analysis of the role of family characteristics as mediating factors in the statistical association between individual and parental education. We find that Nordic countries display lower levels of educational persistence but that the degree of mobility increases over time only in those countries with low initial levels. Moreover, the results suggest that the degree of mobility with respect to fathers and mothers converges to the same level and that family characteristics account for an important part of the statistical association between parental education and children’s schooling; a particular finding is that the most important elements of family characteristics are the family’s socio-economic status and educational assortative mating of the parents.

What are the causes of educational inequalities and of their evolution over time in Europe? Evidence from PISA

This paper provides evidence on the sources of differences in inequalities in educational scores in European Union member states, by decomposing them into their determining factors. Using PISA data from the 2000 and 2006 waves, the paper shows that inequalities emerge in all countries and in both period, but decreased in Germany, whilst they increased in France and Italy. Decomposition shows that educational inequalities do not only reflect background related inequality, but especially schools’ characteristics. The findings allow policy makers to target areas that may make a contribution in reducing educational inequalities.