Physics teachers initial education and professional performance: what do future teachers have to say?

This research deals with the discussion about Physics teachers’ undergraduate education and professional performance related to the knowledge acquired during this initial education. More specifically, we try to answer questions like: How do future teachers evaluate the knowledge acquired during their initial education as in terms of specific knowledge as pedagogical knowledge? What are their formative needs and future expectatives about professional performance and the school teaching environment? Data was constituted from a sample of 26 future high school physics teachers, one semester long, that were taking the supervised curricular training in a undergraduate Physics education program (called Licenciatura in Brazil), in São Paulo State public university. Besides the final report of this training, future teachers were asked to answer a questionnaire aiming to take their conceptions about their initial education program, their formative needs, future professional expectatives and high school teaching environment. According to the future teachers, the program they were about to finish was satisfactory in terms of Physics specific contents; however, about the pedagogical content knowledge and the pedagogical practice, they showed to be unsatisfied and insecure. The majority of the questionnaire responses demonstrated that they feel lack of teaching experience. Moreover, teachers emphasize other factors related to the future professional performance: possible difficulties to deal with students’ indiscipline, schools’ bad physical structure, limited number of Physics classes in high school level, lack of didactical laboratories and also they seem to be frightened that the expertise teachers do not be collaborative with the new ones. In this sense, the research outcomes shows the necessity of discussions about questions involving teachers knowledge, related to either, the Physics conceptual domain and the pedagogical one, since it matters directly to future teachers professional performance. Discussions in this sense can also help evaluation and restructuration of programs designed to initial and continuous teachers’ education.

Educação, Tecnologia e Políticas Públicas: um estudo da proposta político pedagógica de uma escola do município do Estado de São Paulo

Pós-graduação em Educação - FCT

Políticas públicas educacionais, direitos sociais e democratização do acesso à escola: uma visão a partir da implantação da ação TECNEP da Rede Federal de Educação Tecnológica

Pós-graduação em Educação - FFC

The Digital Divide in the University: The Appropriation of ICT in Higher Education Students from Bogota, Colombia

The growth and integration of ICTs in the global economy have created conditions that profoundly affect our society, dividing communities between those who effectively appropriate these resources and those who do not, what is called the digital divide. This exploratory study seeks to propose and validate ways of assessing this phenomenon in higher education, from the construction of a model and a comprehensive methodology that value contextual conditions, in addition to measuring access factors and motivation for use, that have been employed in previous research. To obtain indications about the behavior of this phenomenon, we developed research with students from three universities in Bogota, administering 566 surveys in four phases that would test the variables proposed in the model. The results show that the variables of the model link causally, with the strongest relations between education, attitude towards ICTs and ICT application. Although students have good access to ICTs and high levels of education, no strong relationship was found in regards to perceived impact on production. This may be explained by a superficial appropriation of ICT, due to a context that is alien to its conditions of origin (industrialism, innovation), poor quality of education and economies not centered around R&D.

Cursos superiores de tecnologia: igualdade jurídica e dualidade na escola

Since the 1990s, higher education technology courses in Brazil have greatly expanded the offer of courses and places. However, the high dropout rates presented in these courses led to a research in order to uncover the factors that lead students to dropout. Through literature review and desk research, this study makes a historical analysis of how professional education is conducted in Brazil. This paper seeks to demonstrate that the implementation of public policies for professional education exacerbates the school’s duality. However, such duality generates contradictions between subjective and objective issues produced by the ideology disseminated by public policies and government actions in relation to vocational education. These contradictions end up unveiling the social inferiority of vocational education and discourage students from remaining in the courses. The legal equality between educational levels seeks to mediate the emergence of these contradictions. However, despite legal equality, social equality is not achieved in the implementation of public policies, leading to a high dropout rate.

Percepción de estudiantes de odontología sobre educación a distancia

Introduction: distance education is defined as a learning mode in which pedagogical and didactic mediation in teaching and learning processes is characterized by the use of information and communication means and technology by both teachers and students, and the development of educational activities at different settings and technologyand. Objective: evaluate the knowledge obtained by students from the last year of Odontology about distance education and their opinions about the subject. Methods: across-sectional descriptive exploratory study was conducted. Of the total 140 university students, 120 participated in the study. A self-applied questionnaire was developed with questions related to the student, the use of the Internet and distance education. The professional updating alternatives included were graduate courses and subscription to newspapers. Results: 29.2 % of the students use the Internet on a daily basis; only one student stated that he did not use the Internet. Of the students interviewed, 63.34 % did not know any form of distance education. As a consequence, 97.5 % had never taken part in a distance education course and 62.5 % stated that they did not know whether they would. Conclusions: results show that odontology students are prejudiced against nontraditional learning modes, though they use the Internet on a regular basis. Despite the existence of legislation regulating distance education, students are still concerned about its quality and legality.