A reestruturação do projeto pedagógico de um curso de licenciatura em física de uma universidade pública: contribuições de licenciandos ao processo

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Intencionalidades detectadas no processo de elaboração e implementação de um projeto de formação inicial de professores de física

This article presents part of a PhD research that investigated what are the limiting factors to be overcome by an initial training program for teachers of physics in order to achieve the identity profile of your proposed course on Pedagogical Project Course (PPC). From the survey of the intended ideal, the actions taken by professors, coordinators and managers seeking its implementation were analyzed. Data were collected from official documents, field notes taken during meetings between professors and interviews with the subjects belonging to the faculty of the course. This is a research in action grounded in Habermas principles. For data analysis, we used analytical devices of discourse analysis, using the French perspective of Pêcheux. The outline presented here seeks to highlight the intentions identified through the analysis of discourses present in the texts, in the speech of different subjects involved and the actions undertaken by them during this process. What one can conclude is that the intentions of the involved professors are permeated of contractions, since in some aspects they intend to give the program teacher's an identity (licenciature) and in other ones they try to maintain the status quo, that means, a teachers program which a bachelor’s profile.

A university extension course in leprosy: telemedicine in the Amazon for primary healthcare

There is a high prevalence of leprosy in the Amazon region of Brazil. We have developed a distance education course in leprosy for training staff of the Family Health Teams (FHTs). The course was made available through a web portal. Tele-educational resources were mediated by professors and coordinators, and included the use of theoretical content available through the web, discussion lists, Internet chat, activity diaries, 3-D video animations (Virtual Human on Leprosy), classes in video streaming and case simulation. Sixty-five FHT staff members were enrolled. All of them completed the course and 47 participants received a certificate at the end of the course. At the end of the course, 48 course-evaluation questionnaires were answered. A total of 47 participants (98%) considered the course as excellent. The results demonstrate the feasibility of an interactive, tele-education model as an educational resource for staff in isolated regions. Improvements in diagnostic skills should increase diagnostic suspicion of leprosy and may contribute to early detection.

Evaluating sustainability of an Indian university

The objective of this research is to verify the adherence between the sustainable activities of an Indian university and the variables recommended by Alshuwaikhat and Abubakar (2008) in a framework that analyzed the contributions made by Higher Education Institutions for Sustainable Development. For such, a field work was conducted in India by the first author of this article to get in-depth data about sustainability at the university analyzed. Besides direct observations and gathering documents, interviews were also conducted with professors/scholars, students and employees. It was ascertained that up to the time in which the research was performed, the university studied was not fully adhering to the framework recommended by Alshuwaikhat and Abubakar (2008). Thus, there are still several opportunities for the university studied to be more sustainable. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Greening the campus of a Brazilian university: cultural challenges

Purpose - This study examined the relationship between environmental management practices developed at a campus of a Brazilian university (University of Sao Paulo) and the greening of its organizational culture. The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approach - This article presents a theoretical background based on the concepts of environmental management, organizational culture and environmental management in higher education institutions. The main framework of this research is the model proposed by Harris and Crane.Findings - The studied university has an environmental management program that is sometimes constrained in the following ways: the university bureaucracy and hierarchy; the main performance indicators for lecturers and professors are based on scientific production and publication, giving them little time for complementary activities; and some units develop their own environmental management practices, but they are not disseminated as best practices for use by other units. Some academic units showcase the proactive actions of professors who incorporate environmental management into their daily activities. The general perception is that the phrase environmental management is almost synonymous with solid waste management.Originality/value - This research details the first Brazilian application of the Harris and Crane model. It contributes an original analysis of environmental management and green organizational culture of a Brazilian university, an organizational type that has seldom been studied to date.

FROM FACTORY-FLOOR TO UNIVERSITY

The interaction between industry and university is often discussed. Industry participants feel they do not have enough time to spend with academics because of tight deadlines to achieve your goals. The other hand, professors and his students do not have availability and resources for responding quickly to industry activities. Both sides recognize the associated problems and feel the consequences of various forms. One way to reduce the distance between them is to provide industrial labs that resemble the factory floor at the university. Thus not only students may work on a real technological base, but also the industry's problems can be brought to the university laboratory. To ensure that relevant industrial problems will be studied, the industry needs help in the formulation of the problem being researched. The graduate program of Automation and Control Engineering from UNESP Sorocaba is aimed at training human resources with skills in automation and control activities related to the development of automatic control processes, integrating electronic commands, intelligent manufacturing and industrial robotics. In order to achieve its objectives, one of the pillars of the university consists of a wide range of modern equipments and software for industrial automation, which allows the circuit assembly from most primitive until configuration and programming of a complex system of integrated manufacturing. This paper describes industrial automation equipments and laboratory structure offered to students of Control and Automation Engineering graduate program at UNESP Sorocaba as alternative to close technologies and real problems on the job until academic world. The strategic is to do students understand theory and operations in robotic and industrial automation by means to manipulating real production systems locate at university