Naps in school can enhance the duration of declarative memories learned by adolescents

Sleep helps the consolidation of declarative memories in the laboratory, but the pro-mnemonic effect of daytime naps in schools is yet to be fully characterized. While a few studies indicate that sleep can indeed benefit school learning, it remains unclear how best to use it. Here we set out to evaluate the influence of daytime naps on the duration of declarative memories learned in school by students of 10–15 years old. A total of 584 students from 6th grade were investigated. Students within a regular classroom were exposed to a 15-min lecture on new declarative contents, absent from the standard curriculum for this age group. The students were then randomly sorted into nap and non-nap groups. Students in the nap group were conducted to a quiet room with mats, received sleep masks and were invited to sleep. At the same time, students in the non-nap group attended regular school classes given by their usual teacher (Experiment I), or English classes given by another experimenter (Experiment II). These 2 versions of the study differed in a number of ways. In Experiment I (n = 371), students were pre-tested on lecture-related contents before the lecture, were invited to nap for up to 2 h, and after 1, 2, or 5 days received surprise tests with similar content but different wording and question order. In Experiment II (n = 213), students were invited to nap for up to 50 min (duration of a regular class); surprise tests were applied immediately after the lecture, and repeated after 5, 30, or 110 days. Experiment I showed a significant ∼10% gain in test scores for both nap and non-nap groups 1 day after learning, in comparison with pre-test scores. This gain was sustained in the nap group after 2 and 5 days, but in the non-nap group it decayed completely after 5 days. In Experiment II, the nap group showed significantly higher scores than the non-nap group at all times tested, thus precluding specific conclusions. The results suggest that sleep can be used to enhance the duration of memory contents learned in school.

Narrativas de Formação de Professoras dos Anos Iniciais do Ensino Fundamental:Concepções e Construções de Necessidades Formativas na Geografia Escolar

This article is about a study about the training needs for teachers of elementary school in the field of Geography. It is our objective to grasp their conceptions of training needs and reflect about their formative needs to teach geography. We consider the training as reflective process that involves the movement of changes and improvement beyond of formal learning, considering its numerous dimensions. We reflected about formative needs in light of the readings of Rodrigues Esteves (1993), Silva (2000), Roberts (2006), Vieira (2010). The discussions about conceptions were based on Ferreira (2007). The empirical reference constitutes to a private school in the city of Ceará-Mirim/RN, SECAT Centro de Ensino. The social subjects of our research are five teachers who work in the initial years of elementary school. We resorted a survey (auto) biographical, based on the studies of Passeggi (2011), Delory (2008), Bertaux (2010) e Josso (2010), since it is our intention to turn to the historicity of the subject and the learning, recognizing the links between him and the world and the experiences based on for learning and adult training. As technical and methodological procedure we will use the Training Narratives, whose application allows the understanding of memories and stories of schooling teachers, since are reported events occurred during the development of the individual through seminars Biographical. We observed on the narratives constructed by the teachers the absence assignments of meanings to a reworking of the theoretical formative needs and questions of its organizing principles. However, we notice the teachers were able to develop senses and means to conceive the phenomenon in study, in a descriptive way, through articulated enunciations, including aspects and opportunities linked to their teaching practices and future formative prospects. Regarding School Geography, we based our studies in the reflections of Smith Junior (1994, 2000), Tonini (2003), Vesentini (2004) and Vlach (1991), among others. We verified that the needs evidenced by the teachers to teach geography were constructed from the contexts of their teaching practices present in their school and professional trajectories. Therefore, we noticed the need for formal pedagogical qualification so that we can conceive the phenomenon in study beyond its descriptive character, understanding that it is necessary to point out reflections and questions about the dynamics of production of global capital, which conveys its interests in the contexts that often emerge formative needs of the educational system

Ideal Mariano e docência: a identidade feminina da Proposta Educativa Marista

In the teaching history course it s found the female teacher entering, reflecting significantly in the continuous process of her identity redefinitions and reconstruction. This entering brings, even in a silent and not explicit way, the confluence of gender identity to professional identity, in which are present the relations of the proper to female. In the mastership case, these relations are found imbricated in the teaching identity construction and in the translation of this profession as female, based in Virgin Mary, through Mariano ideal diffused by the catholic church. Therefore there is a lanck in educational historiography towards the register of female teachers presence, mainly in male religious institute, the reason of this study, in which we seek to investigate: how to explain that a female identity can give support to a highly male educational project? What relations can we establish between this female identity and the entering of female teachers in Maristas Province Schools of North Brazil? We performed a bibliographic research in Maristas Schools Libraries, of Marista historial, in Recife, of Pontificia Universidade Católica do Paraná (Catholic University), in Curitiba-PR. We searched for support in studies about pedagogy history, of Marista Institute, Catholic Church, Brasilian Education and of Women; Mariologic studies, the referring to Marista Educational Proposal, to feminization and to teaching identity; and feminist theology productions. The empirical research included 10 schools from referred province and Marista Schools from Lisbon Portugal. Through semi-estructured interviews, we interviewed pioneer female teachers, Marista former Brothers and Brothers from those schools, due to their presence and action within the study period and for the concern to save their memories about the theme. The study reveals the particularities of Mariano ideal as female model and teaching, and her presence in Marista Educational Proposal. This study, in a historical approach, aims to contribute to give visibility to the woman in history and teaching construction in Brazil, mainly in religious institutions from male origin

Olhares sobre a formação do professor de matemática. Imagem da profissão e escrita de si

The main focus of this thesis is the formation of a mathematical teacher at a college institution. The general aim is to describe and to analyze the formation process of a mathematical teacher which is an undergraduate student in Mathematics at the Instituto de Educação Superior Presidente Kennedy IFESP, in Natal-RN. It is based on a qualitative ethnographic approach, and has its theoretical anchorage in the (auto)biographical narratives, the social representative theories, and the mathematical education. The number of participants in this investigation was 12 undergraduate students, which corresponds to 25% of the total number of students. The corpus utilized in our analysis included 48 (auto)biographical essays, 12 (auto)biographies (formation's memories), and 12 contextualization files, besides the research's diary. The sources were obtained from the whole program of studies, i.e. from November 2003 to December 2006. The analysis revealed that the reminiscences of the 12 students' academic trajectory influenced their professional formation, since their images of a mathematical teacher were intrinsically related to the one they had before. These representations were being either demolished or constructed in a network along the assertive image of their profession, changing afterwards the mathematical representation and the teaching way of this discipline. Our study also shows that the beginning of their teacher career was marked by mechanical practices influenced by their old teachers. The (trans)formation of themselves and their teaching practices happened in a smooth way as soon as they increased their knowledgements in Mathematics, and it reflected upon the way they learned mathematics. The writing of their (auto)biographies helped the set up of new knowledgements, leaving to a self-consciousness as well as a self-formation, and contributed for the construction of a new way to see and to live the profession. Therefore, a mathematical teacher, for the undergraduate students of the IFESP involved in this work, is made at the interface of the familiar, academic, and professional context, besides the reflexive writings about the formation path, the way of life and the relationships among them

É como se tivesse a roça e faltasse a enxada: formação em serviço de professores de História no ensino sergipano

This thesis has the aim to comprehend the development of the superior graduation in life service and daily scholar of the history teachers in-land of Sergipe. The History Course graduation was realized through the second part of (Projeto de Qualificação Docente-PQD), the so-called, Teaching Qualification Project of the Federal University of Sergipe, first settled in 1998. Eight teachers were chosen for this research with more than (15) fifteen years of teaching in the Fundamental and Medium levels at public schools of our state (Sergipe). This empiric research priviledged oral testimony from them, which (ones) reveled about the memory tragetory of life. Since childhood until the History Course graduation, besides the evidence as Principal of schools as well as the following classes. All of them were interviewed from in-land and they are from very poor families with lack of social economical conditions. Those evidencies point out economic limitations in their different towns, that contributed to the continuous obstacle in the following studies, moreover in the common market. Therefore they still teach in order to believe in who´s at the botton of this business. Their testimony about this history graduation through PQD , gave them new Professional horizons, modifying their pedagogic practice, choosing what is worth into the social space beyond life expectancy. Through the analyses from all the documents and evidence in loco, it was evident that this graduation is not sufficient to change all the acting of teaching. Consequently, the lack of scholar situation still happens because this qualification doesn´t consider the knowledge of the teachers into their contexts. This research could also observe that besides the changing purposes in the suggested common-job by the globalization, the public politics education, is still underdeveloped in-land of Sergipe. According to the educational laws which obliges all tearches should be graduated, it could be observed that nothing changed into their acting. The old curricula don´t give them new possibility in their acting. At last their salaries, poor conditions in their common-job as well as the difficult ways to get to their pos graduation course still contributes to the underdeveloped acting before they´d graduated from the period before of their graduation

O ensino de matemática no Rio Grande do Norte: trajetória de uma Modernização (1950-1980)

This work aims to describe and analyze the process of the mathematics teacher modernizing in Rio Grande do Norte, in the period from 1950 to 1980. For that, we use as theoretical foundation assumptions of Cultural History and memories of the researchers Maurice Halbwach, Ecléa Bosi and Paul Thompson. As methodological tools, we used bibliographical resources and semi-structured interviews, in order to do a historical reconstruct of the mathematics educational scene of institutions and people who taught mathematics in Rio Grande do Norte, or those who participated in the modernization of the teaching of this subject, recovering their training and its practices in teaching. For the analysis of the bibliographical resources, initially we organized in a systematic way the transcripts of the interviews and documents, which were accumulated during the research, so long our thoughts, returning to the theoretical basis of this research, through questioning of knowledge acquired and that guided the problem of our study. The analysis showed that, important moments to modernize the teaching of mathematics in Rio Grande do Norte happened such: (1) Training Course of Lay Teachers in Rio Grande do Norte, in 1965, (2) Course for Teachers in Normal Schools, in 1971 (3) Satelite Project on Interdisciplinary Advanced Communications (SPIAC) in 1973; (4) Lectures of the teacher Malba Tahan, at Natal, from the end of the 50 s, that could be analyzed through the lessons notes of the teacher Maria Nalva Xavier de Albuquerque and the narrative of teacher Evaldo Rodrigues de Carvalho and (5) Courses of the Campaign for Improvement of Secondary Education and Broadcasting (CISEB). Thereby, the modernization of the school s mathematics teaching in Rio Grande do Norte, in the period from 1950 to 1980, was given mainly by disclosure of the Discovery Method and by the Set Theory contents in Teacher Training Courses

Mala na mão, pé na estrada: à procura de uma pedagogia das singularidades

We make many journeys during our lifetime. In each of them we accumulate experiences that result in an amount of knowledge that constitutes our history. The dissertation presents one of these journeys: that one I took along with students of Pedagogia da Terra project from Universidade do Estado do Rio Grande do Norte UERN to think about the knowledge within their memories in their way from countryside to city seeking for education. I used as main references to this task the ideas of Edgar Morin about Method as Strategy, implication of the subject in knowledge, pertinent knowledge, and knowledge reconnection. And from Paulo Freire I used the concepts of cultural identity assumption and dialog. I built as resource of method the metaphor of the suitcase, called by me the trunk of memory treasures . The use of this cognitive operator makes possible for those students bring their memories to the surface and share them collectively, by the process I name as auto-social- biographical narratives. The explicitness of the memories they choose to reveal by means of these narratives permitted me to understand the metamorphosis of these knowledge since their childhood to nowadays. In order to present an archeology of knowledge within these life histories I chose a narrative writing style concerned with simplicity and lightness, where I use the description of facts and discussions occurred during this journey. My main arguments in systematizing this experience are: scientific production can and should be grounded on knowledge diversity and on a more sensible approach to phenomena; education and pedagogy need to take as starting point and fuel for their practices the singularities of the subjects, their life history, educational background and knowledge resulting from both. Teacher s formation programs which students have mixed, rural and urban, background should value cognitive experiences built in the interaction with that knowledge closer of a sensible logic, deeper grounded in land and nature. Doing so, education can contribute to join diverse knowledge against monocutural forms of thinking and educational practices

O sensível no trabalho docente: representação social entre docentes do Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia do Rio Grande do Norte

The aim of this study was to analyze the social representation of the sensible among teachers of the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Rio Grande do Norte, attempting to identify its constituents and understand the dynamics that gives functionality to your organization. The study is significant considering that the professional conduct can not be delineated in its complexity without unraveling the social representations that teachers themselves have of their being and doing professional. The theoretical and methodological framework of the research is the theory of social representation. 107 teachers from various backgrounds participated. To collect the data were used as instruments : a questionnaire listing, which subsidizes the characterization of the subjects , the TALP - technique of free association of words ( ABRIC , 1994) , the PCM - Procedure for Multiple Ratings ( ROAZZI , 1995) ; questionnaire redemption of sensitive memories of the subjects in their school experiences of childhood , adolescence, youth and teaching practice . The PCM data, in which the slogan was directed at rating Give class, were submitted to multidimensional statistical analysis. Already TALP was analyzed by EVOC 2000 software, the profile questionnaire received descriptive statistical analysis and the memories received the questionnaire analysis of thematic content, Bardin (2004). Taken together, the results point to a social representation of sensitive teaching (the game, the fun, the touch, the smile, the relaxation) are not in the classroom. The sensitive pure still fits in school, but only in the courtyard, on the playground, in the intervals, therefore, outside of space-time class, playful perch that lives in each of us is totally strange to this world of the classroom . After doing the Approximation of ideas , we realized three discourses evident in the reports of teachers : the discourse of Numbness in which we perceive the distance of the teacher in relation to sensitive component as a facilitator in the learning process , the discourse of Feeling , in which we can discern small approximation to the sensitive dialogues and proposed in this study , the speech of reflection in which teachers analyze, evaluate and establish a discourse on the importance of education in sensitive , but not actualize in their teaching practice

Narrativas de formação de professoras dos anos iniciais do ensino fundamental: Concepções e construções de necessidades formativas na Geografia Escolar

This article is about a study about the training needs for teachers of elementary school in the field of Geography. It is our objective to grasp their conceptions of training needs and reflect about their formative needs to teach geography. We consider the training as reflective process that involves the movement of changes and improvement beyond of formal learning, considering its numerous dimensions. We reflected about formative needs in light of the readings of Rodrigues Esteves (1993), Silva (2000), Roberts (2006), Vieira (2010). The discussions about conceptions were based on Ferreira (2007). The empirical reference constitutes to a private school in the city of Ceará-Mirim/RN, SECAT Centro de Ensino. The social subjects of our research are five teachers who work in the initial years of elementary school. We resorted a survey (auto) biographical, based on the studies of Passeggi (2011), Delory (2008), Bertaux (2010) e Josso (2010), since it is our intention to turn to the historicity of the subject and the learning, recognizing the links between him and the world and the experiences based on for learning and adult training. As technical and methodological procedure we will use the Training Narratives, whose application allows the understanding of memories and stories of schooling teachers, since are reported events occurred during the development of the individual through seminars Biographical. We observed on the narratives constructed by the teachers the absence assignments of meanings to a reworking of the theoretical formative needs and questions of its organizing principles. However, we notice the teachers were able to develop senses and means to conceive the phenomenon in study, in a descriptive way, through articulated enunciations, including aspects and opportunities linked to their teaching practices and future formative prospects. Regarding School Geography, we based our studies in the reflections of Smith Junior (1994, 2000), Tonini (2003), Vesentini (2004) and Vlach (1991), among others. We verified that the needs evidenced by the teachers to teach geography were constructed from the contexts of their teaching practices present in their school and professional trajectories. Therefore, we noticed the need for formal pedagogical qualification so that we can conceive the phenomenon in study beyond its descriptive character, understanding that it is necessary to point out reflections and questions about the dynamics of production of global capital, which conveys its interests in the contexts that often emerge formative needs of the educational system.

Um hipermídia sobre fases da lua para o ensino de astronomia a distância

The interdisciplinary nature of Astronomy makes it a field of great potential to explore various scientific concepts. However, studies show a great lack of understanding of fundamental subjects, including models that explain phenomena that mark everyday life, like the phases of the moon. Particularly in the context of distance education, learning of such models can be favored by the use of technologies of information and communication. Among other possibilities, we highlight the importance of digital materials that motivate and expand the forms of representation available about phenomena and models. It is also important, however, that these materials promote the explicitation of student's conceptions, as well as interaction with the most central aspects of the astronomical model for the phenomenon. In this dissertation we present a hypermedia module aimed at learning about the phases of the moon, drawn from an investigation on the difficulties with the subject during an Astronomy course for teaching training at undergraduate level at UFRN. The tests of three semesters of course were analyzed, taking into account also the alternative conceptions reported in the literature in astronomy education. The product makes use of small texts, questions, images and interactive animations. Emphasizes questions about the illumination of the Moon and other bodies, and their relationship to the sun, the perception from different angles of objects illuminated by a single source, the cause of the alternation between day and night, the identification of Moon's orbit around the Earth and the occurrence of the phases as a result of the position of observing it, and the perception of time involved in the phenomenon. The module incorporated considerations obtained from interviews with students in two poles where its given presential support for students of the course, and subjects from different pedagogical contexts. The final form of the material was used in a real situation of learning, as supplementary material for the final test of the discipline. The material was analyzed by 7 students and 4 tutors, among 56 users, in the period in question. Most students considered that the so called "Lunar Module" made a difference in their learning, the animations were considered the most prominent aspect, the images were indicated as stimulating and enlightening, and the text informative and enjoyable. The analysis of learning of these students, observing their responses to issues raised at the last evaluation, suggested gains in key aspects relating to the understanding of the phases, but also indicates more persistent difficulties. The work leads us to conclude that it is important to seek contributions for the training of science teachers making use of new technologies, with attention to the treatment of computer as a complementary resource. The interviews that preceded the use of the module, and the way student has sought the module if with questions and/or previous conflicts - established great difference in the effective contribution of the material, indicating that it should be used with the mediation of teacher or tutor, or via strategies that cause interactions between students. It is desirable that these interactions are associated with the recovery of memories of the subjects about previous observations and models, as well as the stimulus to new observations of phenomena

Autoria e escrita: uma reflexão acerca do autorar em memórias de leituras de alunos de 9º ano do ensino fundamental

This paper presents results concerning studies conducted during the master's research in the area of Applied Linguistics of the Graduate Program in Language Studies - PPgEL, linked to the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte. We approached this study the question of authorship, which has gained ground increasingly important in academic research, because the act of authoring, in view of the amount of circulating discourses socially, becomes increasingly questionable. We understand authorship as related to a positioning of the subject than to take responsibility, in the Bakhtinian sense, by its text, it makes their views, ideologies, beliefs and values, from ownership and restructuring of the speech of others. This research is methodologically inserted in a qualitative, interpretive in nature and has a corpus analysis of the ten productions written memoir genre of readings produced by students in 9th grade in elementary school. Research aimed to analyze the students' written productions held in the school environment, to identify these texts marks or evidence of authorship and investigate how the restructuring of ownership and voices of others in the process of authoring. We adopt a concept of language from bakhitinianas concepts and understand the text in a vision Geraldiana. The analyzes in this study showed that in most texts there is the strong presence of voices of others, either implicitly and/or explicit. That is, students, to build their sayings, if embraced the voices of others in various formats, in particular styles, namely, by what Bakhtin names as linear style and pictorial style. Some proved his statement highlighting their positions through direct quotes from authors of books, family, teachers, showing us that their voices are filled with voices of others with whom they approve, deny, analyze, think and reflect. We therefore conclude that students were constituted as subjects of their texts, authors, since they leave marked the voices of others so presentified and restructured voices of others who do not actually sounded like voices of others, but as present voices from a discursive restructuring producer

Formação de professores de assentamentos rurais do Rio Grande do Norte: representações, memórias e práticas de letramento

This work has as study object the representations that teachers have about literacy, and schooling, as well as their memories and their reading and writing practices in the formation process of teachers in rural areas of the State of Rio Grande do Norte. We focused our discussion in literacy practices constructed on language workshops, assumed as necessary for the teacher formation, the existence of a pedagogical context that allows developing the appropriate teaching action. These workshops aimed at creating a space of constant reflection and action. The corpus is composed of letters written by teachers in formation workshops and interviews emphasizing questions of literacy, schooling, memories and reading and writing practices. These teachers make use of literacy practices related to the plots which they belong to. This research is informed mainly by studies that discuss the Literacy (Street, 1984, 1995; Barton, 1998; Freire, 1978, 1980, 1990, 1996), focusing its political character and of inclusion to the literate world, the Social Representations (Moscovici, 1978) and the studies on genre as a discoursive practice (Fairclough, 2001). Methodologically, this research is of critical ethnographic nature (Cameron, 1992). The letters are disclosed as identity practices - pictures of life histories of the teachers. The analyses of the interviews, in turn, show the literacy multifaceted character, evidencing innumerable views on the phenomenon

A construção da imagem de leitor em memórias de leitura

In this work, we analyzed reading memories of mother language teachers in continuing education context. Our objective was to understand how each individual has built his/her reader image. Our theoretical approach to the construction of selfimage was based on the concept of discursive ethos, understanding it with Charaudeau (2006) as something constructed in the intersection of glances (of the self and the other). To understand how each teacher has built his/her reader image in that intertwining of glances (of the self and the other) we are on the contributions of Bakhtin (2003, 2010b) on exotopic glance or distant/external glance. Therefore, in the analysis, we tried to capture the exotopic glance of the teachers about themselves in the various stages of their reader formation and from our exotopic look of researcher; we gave provisional finish of the reader image that teachers built of themselves. For the analysis, we adopted other theoretical assumptions: about genres, theme, composition and style, statement and social voices we based on Bakhtin (1997, 2003, 2010a, 2010b); on the notion of the discursive ethos we anchored in studies conducted by Maingueneau (2008a, 2008b); about reading, we adopted the theoretical references of Rojo (2005, 2008, 2009a, 2009b, 2009c, 2009d), Garcez (2002), Freire (2008) and Silva Neto (2007). For the discursive genre reading memories makes reference to the theme memory as well as is related to the context of teacher training, the study was supported in Aragão (1992) and Nóvoa`s (2007) theory. Situated in the area of Applied Linguistics, the research aligns with qualitative-interpretative approach of socio-historical basis. Finally, from the analysis of the corpus, data that emerged from the findings, we conclude by stating that readers have created images of themselves as active readers, readers interested in both readings, the ones respected and the ones unappreciated by the official culture