Neuroscience and education: prime time to build the bridge

As neuroscience gains social traction and entices media attention, the notion that education has much to benefit from brain research becomes increasingly popular. However, it has been argued that the fundamental bridge toward education is cognitive psychology, not neuroscience. We discuss four specific cases in which neuroscience synergizes with other disciplines to serve education, ranging from very general physiological aspects of human learning such as nutrition, exercise and sleep, to brain architectures that shape the way we acquire language and reading, and neuroscience tools that increasingly allow the early detection of cognitive deficits, especially in preverbal infants. Neuroscience methods, tools and theoretical frameworks have broadened our understanding of the mind in a way that is highly relevant to educational practice. Although the bridge’s cement is still fresh, we argue why it is prime time to march over it.

Neuroscience and education: prime time to build the bridge

As neuroscience gains social traction and entices media attention, the notion that education has much to benefit from brain research becomes increasingly popular. However, it has been argued that the fundamental bridge toward education is cognitive psychology, not neuroscience. We discuss four specific cases in which neuroscience synergizes with other disciplines to serve education, ranging from very general physiological aspects of human learning such as nutrition, exercise and sleep, to brain architectures that shape the way we acquire language and reading, and neuroscience tools that increasingly allow the early detection of cognitive deficits, especially in preverbal infants. Neuroscience methods, tools and theoretical frameworks have broadened our understanding of the mind in a way that is highly relevant to educational practice. Although the bridge’s cement is still fresh, we argue why it is prime time to march over it.

Sociedade, mulher e educação nos romances de Graciliano Ramos

This paper, Society, woman and education in Graciliano Ramos' novels, is a study object from the history of woman's education in the 1930 s, it is shown as a reading of woman's representation and the configuration of the Brazilian society in that period. São Bernardo, Angustia and Vidas Secas written by Graciliano Ramos (1892-1953) from Alagoas, are used here as sources associated with the reading of the Constitutions, of the Civil Code and of some presidential messages of that decade, also with the texts produced by other scholars that present some relationship within the thematic of this approach. The representation concepts and the configuration are essential for the production of this text. I run over to the configuration concept given by Chartier (1988, p.21) a definition to representation that can be understood as a relationship between a present image and an absent object that having the value of this because it is hamonized with it. I fall back upon the configuration concept given by Elias (1969) that understands it as been a social group performed by an interdependent network that occurs within individuals as a whole joined by any reason. The totality of each individual actions with each other, permeated by tension points and balance, is what characterizes each configuration; it can be a teachers and students meeting in a classroom or a friends' encounter in the bar table, for instance. The attempt of understanding woman's representation, being educated or not, the hole attributed to her in society according to her instruction degree and the way that same society saw this woman guided me through categories that were defined throughout the successive readings: gender, civil status, education, language domain, sexuality, marriage, family, ideal woman. I accomplish this reading that was possible to do - with the pretension of not having lost the relationship between history and literature nor forgotten each one peculiarities

Dimensões e universo das representações sociais de educação ambiental por discentes em Garanhuns-PE

The research aimed at investigating the dimensions and the universe of social representations of environmental education, as well as identifying the senses and meanings Environmental Education. This study admitted as presumption the education and environment dimensions. In this investigation was adopted as reference the dimension or representation scope of Moscovici. One hundred and twenty (120) students from Public Schools of Basic Education participated of this study and moreover three hundred and twenty-three (323) from Higher Education in the area of the UPE-FACETEG. The following questions were admitted: 1) What are the dimensions/categories that exist in the semantic scope of social representations of the environmental education? 2) What are the senses and meanings of environmental education? 3) The student s representations of Basic Education are similar or different from the Higher Education? The software EVOC helped in the organization of semantic scope for construction of the categories, with support of the contents analysis. The justifications are sorted on lexical classes using the software ALCESTE, through of the speech analyses. The free association of words answered the question dimension/categories and its semantic scope, being: a) Nature/Environment; b) values; c) Attitudes; d) Actions; e) Implications; f) Mediation. Six lexical classes were found with its meanings enumerated in this way: 1.Awareness, as a factor of belief for the preservation of nature and society. The students are clamoring for environmental education in the school, emphasizing the importance of awareness in the development of the respect to the environment linking the education and family; 2. The consciousness-knowledge relationship for the environment-nature preservation. 3. The environment and human interventions, in search of indicators of solutions. 4. Nature /background/ environment and its constituting elements, a thinking of values and an acting for mediation. 5. The human-nature interaction in social representations of environmental education and the symbolic-life size. 6. Nature / environment /, values, attitudes, actions, implications, and mediation in nature-man relationships. The groups more representatives according to these lexical classes were, the Basic Education in the class-4, represented exclusively by the Primary and Secondary Education and the class-6 represented by both two the Basic Education (47,37%) and the Higher Education (52,63%) - History, Pedagogy, Psychology, Mathematics, Language and Literature. The classes 4 and 6 are related to the class-3 which in turn is formed by students of Higher Education (Mathematics, Biology, Pedagogy, Psychology, Language and Literature) and Basic Education (Primary and Secondary Education). The Higher Education is most represented by the lexical classes (1, 2 and 5). The class 2 corresponded to 80% of the researched groups. In the class-1 the biggest representation was concerning to the Psychology, Geography, Biology and Language and Literature courses, whereas the class-5 was best represented by Psychology, Biology, Pedagogy, Language and Literature, Geography and History. From the results, one may conclude that the imagery is nature/environment; that life is the symbolic dimension that permeates the whole imaginary, and that preservation, awareness and respect are inserted in the speech that circulate to protect life

Análise de necessidades de formação: uma prática reveladora de objetivos da formação docente

In recent years, in Brazil, researches in the area of education have been focused on the study of the necessities of formation, by the practice of necessity analysis, to subside the continued teacher formation programs. This research on the necessity of the formation of literacy teachers in the initial years of primary education originated in our discussions in academia, regarding the issues of retention and evasion related to basic literacy teaching in Brazilian public schools. We defined as a goal: to know the necessities of the formation of literacy teachers from Odila Leite Municipal Elementary School, Natal/RN, which focuses on the literacy teaching on that level of education and in Adult and Youth Education. The object is the necessities in these teachers formation. The thesis is that the literacy teacher reveals/constructs formation necessities when speaking of her practice, when exerting said practice or even when producing teaching materials which subside that practice; in other words, when making the theoretical/practical relation related to literacy teaching. The approach is qualitative, according to which the natural environment is the source for data collection; the focus of interest is the process of knowledge construction, and fundamental importance is given to the meanings constructed by the subjects. We comprehended that necessity is a socially constructed subjective phenomenon, and that necessity analysis allows the revelation of formation objectives. We used the case study as a methodological strategy which permits: studying a well-defined entity, [ ] as well as an academic institution; the global comprehension of the phenomenon of interest; discovering what is most essential and characteristic in the object. We counted with 17 teachers, 3 of which had their teaching practices observed. We observed the school routine, analyzed the main class documents and plans and interviewed the 17 teachers. We triangulated the data obtained by the routine observation, the observation of the three teachers practices and by the document analysis, next, we triangulated this data with the data from the analyzing the interviews with the 17 teachers. Such procedures reveal formation necessities in those teachers , such as: studying child cognitive development; reviewing the concepts of literacy teaching; reviewing fundaments of written language psychogenesis; reflecting on reading practices and literature; reflecting on the practice of daily planning; reflecting on the school s material conditions and the family/school relation. We concluded that researches of this nature contribute to the orientation of teacher formation programs

Literatura de monteiro lobato no ensino de ciências

Advocating education as a humanizing task, the humanizing function of literature and the importance of scientific education, this paper proposes linking Science and Literature in Science Teaching using two specific books of Monteiro Lobato in the final series of elementary school level. Adopting the action research methodology, an interdisciplinary approach, we used the books A Reforma da Natureza and Serões de Dona Benta in two classes (8th and 9th) at Escola Estadual Professor José Mamede, located in the town of Tibau do Sul, Rio Grande do Norte. The readings were performed in Portuguese Language s course and the scientific content were discussed in Science´s classrooms. The book A Reforma da Natureza permitted to approach issues related to the environment, while the use of Serões de Dona Benta showed particularly its effectiveness in questioning the concepts of matter, mass, weight and some questions about the Nature of Science (NOS). In general, the analysis of results shows that the readings of these two books permitted interaction and dialogicity in the classroom, as well as indicates the potential of these books in contextualing and questioning the scientific content contained in it. We advise, however, the need for the science teacher be aware of the conceptual mistakes present in literary works, avoiding erroneous learning and reinforcement of alternative conceptions