The instrumentality of the portfolios in the teach-learning process: study with higher education Portuguese teachers

In a time when higher education come for deep changes and if intends an education more centered in the pupil, the teach-learning portfolios appears as a tool to use, because versatile and with innumerable potentialities. This article reveals the results gotten with higher education teachers, who we looked for to know if these appeal in use the teach-learning portfolios, in the curricular units that teach. We looked for, equally, to perceive of that forms these are used. This is an exploratory study, basically descriptive, that does not have pretensions to generalize for all the teaching population. We elaborated and we applied a questionnaire, with 290 teachers of higher education public, university and polytechnic. We verify that the percentage of the teachers that uses the portfolios in the teach- learning process is not very raised.

Continuous improvement programs as processes for organizational learning: a case study of a company in the food products industry

This article intends to show the relationships between quality practices and the process of organizational learning. When we look at the literature about programs of continuous improvement we see that theoreticians consider that the process of organizational learning is a superior stage in the quality culture adopted by companies. To investigate this possibility, we put together a series of indicators taken from classic authors who have written about organizational learning. Adopting a multiple methodology, we applied these indicators to two plants belonging to the Nestlé food product company which have introduced continuous improvement programs over the last two years.