A aprendizagem cooperativa como estratégia promotora de inclusão no 1º Ciclo

Deste Trabalho de projeto faz parte uma intervenção junto de uma turma que inclui um aluno considerado com necessidades educativas especiais. A intervenção ocorreu numa turma do 1º ano de escolaridade, numa escola de uma cidade do Alto Alentejo, onde está o aluno desencadeador da nossa ação, diagnosticado com a Síndrome de Prader-Willi. Considerando que a intervenção necessita de ser fundamentada em pressupostos teóricos que sustentem as opções realizadas, no enquadramento teórico são tratados os temas: inclusão, organização e funcionamento da educação especial, aprendizagem cooperativa e estratégias na sala de aula e por último a síndrome de Prader-willi. Relativamente ao enquadramento metodológico, atendendo ao facto da investigação ser realizada numa turma onde vamos intervir, leva a que se trate de uma investigação em que a componente reflexiva teve um papel decisivo em todas as fases do trabalho, tendo-se optado por uma metodologia qualitativa assente nos princípios da investigação-ação. Utilizámos diversos métodos para a recolha de dados, nomeadamente a análise documental, a observação naturalista, a entrevista e a sociometria, o que nos permitiu recolher várias perspetivas sobre o mesmo contexto e proceder a cruzamentos entre elas. Da caracterização da turma, do aluno e dos contextos, partimos para uma intervenção estruturada, numa dinâmica de planificação, ação, avaliação e reflexão, geradora de práticas educativas diferenciadas e inclusivas. Pretendemos, com a intervenção, criar uma dinâmica cooperativa e de colaboração no grupo da turma, para que se alcance uma situação de inclusão educativa, em que os alunos aprendem todos e com todos, para conseguirem obter sucesso educativo. Os resultados obtidos indicam-nos que o aluno está incluído e que ao longo das sessões de trabalho foi mantendo um nível de interação mais positivo com os colegas. As atividades desenvolvidas tiveram impacto sobre todos os alunos e não apenas sobre o aluno desencadeador da ação.

Aquisição de hábitos de trabalho e valores de cidadania em Percursos Curriculares Alternativos: uma educação inclusiva ou excludente?

O trabalho apresentado decorre do Projecto de Intervenção realizado no âmbito do Mestrado em Educação Especial: domínio cognitivo e motor, na Universidade Lusófona de Humanidades e Tecnologias. A presente intervenção contempla o trabalho realizado com uma turma de currículo alternativo (Cursos de Educação e Formação de Jovens), no que concerne à aquisição de hábitos e métodos de estudo e trabalho, bem como à interiorização de determinados valores de cidadania, potenciadores da aquisição de alguma motivação para a aprendizagem. O enquadramento teórico facilitará a compreensão das pedras basilares da intervenção, bem como das posições defendidas relativamente à escola inclusiva, à educação para a cidadania, à escola como espaço de luta contra a exclusão e o estigma e à possibilidade de uma aprendizagem significativa e integradora. Para obter informações sobre a turma em questão, sobre a sua integração num espaço escolar específico e para delinear todo o processo de intervenção foram utilizados vários suportes metodológicos, a saber, a pesquisa documental, a observação naturalista, os questionários e diversos instrumentos de registo (notas de campo). Os princípios que orientaram a intervenção realizada, tendo como horizonte uma investigação - acção, bem como os objectivos definidos para a turma, as diversas actividades realizadas, os métodos de avaliação dessa mesma aprendizagem e a colaboração de todos os intervenientes neste processo, permitiram a constatação de algumas melhorias relevantes na área académica e social, em alguns alunos. As práticas educativas que delinearam esta intervenção permitiram desbravar novos caminhos em direcção a novas formas de encarar o ensino de jovens em risco de abandono escolar, permitindo uma nova visão da importância de uma escola democrática, integradora e acolhedora. Considerando-se que no início estávamos perante um grupo-turma com muitas dificuldades comportamentais, com falta de auto-estima e gosto pela escola e com total ausência de métodos e hábitos de estudo e trabalho, pode afirmar-se que todos os alunos melhoraram nos aspectos referidos, demonstrando um comportamento mais adequado em sala de aula e adquirindo alguns métodos e hábitos de estudo relevantes para o sucesso escolar.

Ao encontro da inclusão: Uma tentativa de promover a autonomia e o sucesso de uma aluna com autismo, na disciplina de Matemática, através de estratégias de aprendizagem cooperativa

A Escola Inclusiva é a conquista recente de uma sociedade culta e democrática que vê na educação um campo de luta pelo cumprimento dos direitos à igualdade de todos os cidadãos independentemente das suas características individuais, exigindo uma escola que não discrimine e aceite a diferença. O trabalho apresentado é decorrente do Projeto de Intervenção, fundamentado na investigação-ação, realizado no âmbito do Curso de 2º ciclo em Educação Especial. Com este projeto quisemos minimizar dificuldades apresentadas por uma aluna com características do espectro do autismo, na área curricular disciplinar de Matemática e da socialização, numa perspectiva inclusiva. O enquadramento teórico abordou a Educação Inclusiva, a Escola Inclusiva, a Aprendizagem Cooperativa e as Perturbações do Espectro do Autismo. Como instrumentos, utilizámos a pesquisa documental, a entrevista semi-directiva à professora de Educação Espacial, a observação naturalista e a sociometria. A planificação global da intervenção, equacionada numa perspectiva de escola inclusiva, foi elaborada a partir do relacionamento/ cruzamento dos dados que resultaram da análise da informação recolhida, avaliados ao longo de todo o processo. A intervenção permitiu-nos constatar que a aluna fez aprendizagens significativas na área académica e social. Assim, nesta intervenção, confrontámo-nos com o desafio de práticas educativas, diferenciadas e inclusivas. Estas práticas, por sua vez, contribuíram para que os colegas e pais a olhassem de forma mais optimista e com um maior respeito face à sua problemática.

Indirect population dynamic benefits of altered life-history trade-offs in response to egg harvesting

Variations in demographic rates due to differential resource allocation between individuals are important considerations in the development of accurate population dynamic models. Systematic harvesting can alter age structure and/or reduce population density, conferring indirect positive benefits on the source population as a result of a consequent redistribution of resources between the remaining individuals. Independently of effects mediated through changes in density and competition, demographic rates can also be influenced by within-individual competition for resources. Harvesting dependent life stages can reduce an individual's current reproductive costs, allowing increased investment in its future fecundity and survival. Although such changes in demographic rates are well known, there has been little exploration of the potential impact on population dynamics. We use empirical data collected from a successfully reintroduced population of the Mauritius kestrel Falco punctatus to explore the population consequences of manipulating reproductive effort through harvesting. Consequent increases in an individual's future fecundity and survival allow source populations to withstand longer and more intensive harvesting regimes without being exposed to an increase in extinction risk, increasing maximum sustainable yields. These effects may also buffer populations against the impacts of stochastic events, but directional shifts in environmental conditions that increase reproductive costs may have detrimental population-level effects.

Mammal reproductive strategies driven by offspring mortality-size relationships

Trade-offs have long been a major theme in life-history theory, but they have been hard to document. We introduce a new method that reveals patterns of divergent trade-offs after adjusting for the pervasive variation in rate of resource allocation to offspring as a function of body size and lifestyle. Results suggest that preweaning vulnerability to predation has been the major factor determining how female placental mammals allocate production between a few large and many small offspring within a litter and between a few large litters and many small ones within a reproductive season. Artiodactyls, perissodactyls, cetaceans, and pinnipeds, which give birth in the open on land or in the sea, produce a few large offspring, at infrequent intervals, because this increases their chances of escaping predation. Insectivores, fissiped carnivores, lagomorphs, and rodents, whose offspring are protected in burrows or nests, produce large litters of small newborns. Primates, bats, sloths, and anteaters, which carry their young from birth until weaning, produce litters of one or a few offspring because of the need to transport and care for them.

Relating traits to diversification: A simple test

We describe a simple comparative method for determining whether rates of diversification are correlated with continuous traits in species-level phylogenies. This involves comparing traits of species with net speciation rate (number of nodes linking extant species with the root divided by the root to tip evolutionary distance), using a phylogenetically corrected correlation. We use simulations to examine the power of this test. We find that the approach has acceptable power to uncover relationships between speciation and a continuous trait and is robust to background random extinction; however, the power of the approach is reduced when the rate of trait evolution is decreased. The test has low power to relate diversification to traits when extinction rate is correlated with the trait. Clearly, there are inherent limitations in using only data on extant species to infer correlates of extinction; however, this approach is potentially a powerful tool in analyzing correlates of speciation.

Bayesian analysis of correlated evolution of discrete characters by reversible-jump Markov chain Monte Carlo

We describe a Bayesian method for investigating correlated evolution of discrete binary traits on phylogenetic trees. The method fits a continuous-time Markov model to a pair of traits, seeking the best fitting models that describe their joint evolution on a phylogeny. We employ the methodology of reversible-jump ( RJ) Markov chain Monte Carlo to search among the large number of possible models, some of which conform to independent evolution of the two traits, others to correlated evolution. The RJ Markov chain visits these models in proportion to their posterior probabilities, thereby directly estimating the support for the hypothesis of correlated evolution. In addition, the RJ Markov chain simultaneously estimates the posterior distributions of the rate parameters of the model of trait evolution. These posterior distributions can be used to test among alternative evolutionary scenarios to explain the observed data. All results are integrated over a sample of phylogenetic trees to account for phylogenetic uncertainty. We implement the method in a program called RJ Discrete and illustrate it by analyzing the question of whether mating system and advertisement of estrus by females have coevolved in the Old World monkeys and great apes.

Bergmann's rule and body size in mammals

Aim: To describe the geographical pattern of mean body size of the non-volant mammals of the Nearctic and Neotropics and evaluate the influence of five environmental variables that are likely to affect body size gradients. Location: The Western Hemisphere. Methods: We calculated mean body size (average log mass) values in 110 × 110 km cells covering the continental Nearctic and Neotropics. We also generated cell averages for mean annual temperature, range in elevation, their interaction, actual evapotranspiration, and the global vegetation index and its coefficient of variation. Associations between mean body size and environmental variables were tested with simple correlations and ordinary least squares multiple regression, complemented with spatial autocorrelation analyses and split-line regression. We evaluated the relative support for each multiple-regression model using AIC. Results: Mean body size increases to the north in the Nearctic and is negatively correlated with temperature. In contrast, across the Neotropics mammals are largest in the tropical and subtropical lowlands and smaller in the Andes, generating a positive correlation with temperature. Finally, body size and temperature are nonlinearly related in both regions, and split-line linear regression found temperature thresholds marking clear shifts in these relationships (Nearctic 10.9 °C; Neotropics 12.6 °C). The increase in body sizes with decreasing temperature is strongest in the northern Nearctic, whereas a decrease in body size in mountains dominates the body size gradients in the warmer parts of both regions. Main conclusions: We confirm previous work finding strong broad-scale Bergmann trends in cold macroclimates but not in warmer areas. For the latter regions (i.e. the southern Nearctic and the Neotropics), our analyses also suggest that both local and broad-scale patterns of mammal body size variation are influenced in part by the strong mesoscale climatic gradients existing in mountainous areas. A likely explanation is that reduced habitat sizes in mountains limit the presence of larger-sized mammals.

Rensch's rule in large herbivorous mammals derived from metabolic scaling

Rensch’s rule, which states that the magnitude of sexual size dimorphism tends to increase with increasing body size, has evolved independently in three lineages of large herbivorous mammals: bovids (antelopes), cervids (deer), and macropodids (kangaroos). This pattern can be explained by a model that combines allometry,life-history theory, and energetics. The key features are thatfemale group size increases with increasing body size and that males have evolved under sexual selection to grow large enough to control these groups of females. The model predicts relationships among body size and female group size, male and female age at first breeding,death and growth rates, and energy allocation of males to produce body mass and weapons. Model predictions are well supported by data for these megaherbivores. The model suggests hypotheses for why some other sexually dimorphic taxa, such as primates and pinnipeds(seals and sea lions), do or do not conform to Rensh’s rule.

Placentation and maternal investment in mammals

The mammalian placenta exhibits striking interspecific morphological variation, yet the implications of such diversity for reproductive strategies and fetal development remain obscure. More invasive hemochorial placentas, in which fetal tissues directly contact the maternal blood supply, are believed to facilitate nutrient transfer, resulting in higher fetal growth rates, and to be a state of relative fetal advantage in the evolution of maternal-offspring conflict. The extent of interdigitation between maternal and fetal tissues has received less attention than invasiveness but is also potentially important because it influences the surface area for exchange. We show that although increased placental invasiveness and interdigitation are both associated with shorter gestations, interdigitation is the key variable. Gestation times associated with highly interdigitated labyrinthine placentas are 44% of those associated with less interdigitated villous and trabecular placentas. There is, however, no relationship between placental traits and neonatal body and brain size. Hence, species with more interdigitated placentas produce neonates of similar body and brain size but in less than half the time. We suggest that the effects of placental interdigitation on growth rates and the way that these are traded off against gestation length may be promising avenues for understanding the evolutionary dynamics of parentoffspring conflict. Keywords: placenta, parent-offspring conflict, life history, brain evolution, reproductive strategies, gestation.

Cosmic effects on the intimate screen: J. B. Priestley, Ralph Richardson and 'Johnson over Jordan' (1965)

This article considers ideas about the suitability of experimental, non-naturalist, narrative forms in theatre and television, through the example of a 1965 BBC2 adaptation of J. B. Priestley's 1939 play Johnson over Jordan. Using both textual analysis of the programme and research into the BBC production documentation, this essay explains how the circumstances and conditions of 1960s television adaptation and the star casting of Sir Ralph Richardson transformed Priestley's stage play. The TV adaptation achieved cosmic effects on an intimate scale, through inference and the imaginative integration of the studio space with dubbed sound.

Competition and dispersal in Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Dispersal plays a crucial role in a range of evolutionary and ecological processes; hence there is strong motivation to understand its evolution. One key prediction is that the relative benefits of dispersal should be greater when dispersing away from close relatives, because in this case dispersal has the additional benefit of alleviating competition with individuals who share the same dispersal alleles. We tested this prediction for the first time using experimental populations of the opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa. We measured the fitness of isogenic genotypes that differed only in their dispersal behaviors in both clonal and mixed populations. Consistent with theory, the benefit of dispersal was much higher in clonal populations, and this benefit decreased with increasing growth rate costs associated with dispersal.

Transient microgeographic clines during B chromosome invasion

The near-neutral model of B chromosome evolution predicts that the invasion of a new population should last some tens of generations, but the details on how it proceeds in real populations are mostly unknown. Trying to fill this gap, we analyze here a natural population of the grasshopper Eyprepocnemis plorans at three time points during the last 35 years. Our results show that B chromosome frequency increased significantly during this period, and that a cline observed in 1992 had disappeared in 2012 once B frequency reached an upper limit in all sites sampled. This indicates that, during B chromosome invasion, at microgeographic scale, transient clines for B frequency are formed at the invasion front. Computer simulation experiments showed that the pattern of change observed for genotypic frequencies is consistent with the existence of B chromosome drive through females and selection against individuals with high number of B chromosomes.

The curious case of the camelthorn: competition, coexistence and nest-site limitation in a multispecies mutualism

Myrmecophyte plants house ants in domatia in exchange for protection from herbivores. Ant-myrmecophyte mutualisms exhibit two general patterns due to competition between ants for plant occupancy: i) domatia nest-sites are a limiting resource and ii) each individual plant hosts one ant species at a time. However, individual camelthorn trees (Vachellia erioloba) typically host two to four ant species simultaneously, often coexisting in adjacent domatia on the same branch. Such fine-grain spatial coexistence brings into question the conventional wisdom on ant-myrmecophyte mutualisms. Camelthorn ants appear not to be nest-site limited, despite low abundance of suitable domatia, and have random distributions of nest-sites within and across trees. These patterns suggest a lack of competition between ants for domatia and contrast strongly with other ant-myrmecophyte systems. Comparison of this unusual case with others suggests that spatial scale is crucial to coexistence or competitive exclusion involving multiple ant species. Furthermore, coexistence may be facilitated when co-occurring ant species diverge strongly on at least one niche axis. Our conclusions provide recommendations for future ant-myrmecophyte research, particularly in utilising multispecies systems to further our understanding of mutualism biology.

Intraspecific trait variation is correlated with establishment success of alien mammals

Many studies have aimed to identify common predictors of successful introductions of alien species, but the search has had limited success, particularly for animals. Past research focused primarily on mean trait values, even though genetic and phenotypic variation has been shown to play a role in establishment success in plants and some animals (mostly invertebrates). Using a global database describing 511 introduction events representing 97 mammalian species, we show that intraspecific variation in morphological traits is associated with establishment success, even when controlling for the positive effect of propagule pressure. In particular, greater establishment success is associated with more variation in adult body size but, surprisingly, less variation in neonate body size, potentially reflecting distinct trade-offs and constraints that influence population dynamics differently. We find no mean trait descriptors associated with establishment success, although species occupying wider native distribution ranges (which likely have larger niches) are more successful. Our results emphasize the importance of explicitly considering intraspecific variation to predict establishment success in animal species and generally to understand population dynamics. This understanding might improve management of alien species and increase the success of intentional releases, for example, for biocontrol or reintroductions.