Teaching cross-cultural competence and CLIL: a CLIL approach in International Relations University Courses

International relations professionals need cross-cultural competence and English language communication skills to function in the international arena (Graddol 1997). English language communication skills are necessary not only to communicate with foreign colleagues (Bocanegra-Valle 2014) but also to access the vast amount of knowledge transmitted in English over the internet (Ku, Zussman 2010). This work reports the use of CLIL and cross-cultural training in the University of Messina International Relations Advanced Degree Program as a method to raise students’ level of English as quickly as possible while giving them the essential intercultural skills for work in the international field. The researchbased course program combined cross-cultural communication training (Storti, 1997; Lewis, 1999; Gannon, 2004, Harris and Moran, 2007; U.S Peace Corps Training Handbook 2012,) and intercultural competence skill development (Bennett, 1998). Two objectives were proposed: 1) develop cross-cultural communication competence; 2) bring students up to a B2 level as fast as possible. The final exam demonstrated significant growth in the areas of cross-cultural competence as well as an increase in European Common Framework level ranging from .5 to 1.0 depending on the student. Students expressed their belief that what they had learned would be useful for their future career. Combining CLIL with intercultural competence building seems to be effective in meeting two objectives: increasing English language fluency and developing cross-cultural communication competence. More research is recommended to further document this method for increasing English communication proficiency while developing interculturally competent international professionals.

A formação do Químico

Training of highly qualified personnel is the most transversal axis among those identified in the document "Mobilizing Axes in Chemistry", published by SBQ, in 2002, which demands to deep the discussions, initiated in the symposium "The Chemist's Education", whose main objective was to discuss the repercussions of that training in the teaching and in the industrial section. After the publication of an initial paper, a couple of meetings and workshops held in Rio de Janeiro, in December 2003, involving the national chemist community, discussed the "The role of the graduate degrees in the Chemist's Education" and "The Chemist's Education", and confirmed the need to invest in the formation of qualified human resources in profusion and in all levels. Actions to be taken were delineated. Presently, the graduate programs in Chemistry are showing expressive results. However, although these professionals are mostly absorbed by the academy (the absorption of the industry is less significant), only a few programs give special attention to the didactical and pedagogical training. The regional decentralization is actually a tendency in most programs, but the interaction academy-economic activities is still a challenge. It is necessary to establish with the industrial section, the highly qualified professional's profile in Chemistry that the industry can absorb. The undergraduation is growing in number and quality, however still excessively concentrated in the Southeast area. The national "Curricula Guidelines" for Chemistry Courses, through its flexible approach, propitiate the integral, interdisciplinary (non compartmentalized) and critical-reflexive training of the professionals as citizens and as entrepreneurs. However, deficiencies are still recognized. The evaluation system of undergraduate courses has been able to identify the most fragile modalities of courses and other indicators. It was also verified that Brazilian chemistry industry absorbs minimally the highly qualified professionals, which is attributed to the fact that the Federal Council of Chemistry is vertically organized and does not recognize the graduate degrees as professional qualification. In the conclusion, it stands out, among other aspects, the importance of the effective implantation of the national curricula guidelines, bringing out courses whose didactical and pedagogical projects may offer a solid formation in Chemistry, but comprehensive and general enough to enable the Chemistry professionals to develop varied skills.

A graduação em química: um novo químico para uma nova era

The discussions sponsored by the Brazilian Chemical Society, over the past five years, intending to produce a chemistry agenda with perspectives and needs for the next decade for the country, have involved the national chemistry community and several related sectors of Brazilian society. Chemistry education has been the theme throughout these discussions. It is known that the low level of basic and secondary education and the recent increase in high school courses and institutions adversely affect the quality of undergraduate teaching. The recent national "Curriculum Guidelines" for Chemistry Courses, through their flexible approach, encourage the integral, interdisciplinary (non compartmentalized) and critical-reflexive training of professionals as citizens and as entrepreneurs. However, deficiencies are still recognized. The system of undergraduate course evaluation has identified the most fragile modalities of the courses and other indicators. Also, it has been verified that the Brazilian chemistry industry absorbs only minimally the highly qualified professionals, which is attributed to the fact that the Federal Council of Chemistry is vertically organized and does not recognize the graduate degrees as professional qualifications. In conclusion, the importance of the effective implantation of the national curriculum guidelines is apparent, among other aspects, highlighting courses whose didactical and pedagogical projects may offer a solid formation in Chemistry. However, at the same time the guidelines are comprehensive and general enough to enable the chemistry professionals to develop varied skills.

A evasão nos cursos de graduação de química: uma experiência de sucesso feita no Instituto de Química da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro para diminuir a evasão

The problem of the dropping out of the graduate chemistry courses is not new in the Brazilian University. What are the principal factors for this dropping out? Are there rules to measure this dropping out? In this work we present our experience in the Chemistry Institute of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro to deal with this problem.

A prática docente na formação do pós-graduando em química

The present work describes how a group of chemistry graduate students have improved their teaching skills by teaching extension courses. It is suggested that future teachers have much to be gained by sharing the insights they have whilst teaching with their peers and students. This work explores the implications in teaching and learning and the relationship between teachers and students. This relationship requires mutual respect of ideas as well as continuous critical evaluation in both directions.

Avaliação de uma proposta contextualizada sobre o ensino de polarimetria nos cursos de farmácia e engenharia de alimentos, na Universidade Federal do Ceará

This work deals with an evaluation of an experimental application about polarimetry for pharmacy and food engineering courses. Foods obtained from the undergraduate students were used for demonstrating multidisciplinary concepts and these concepts were associated to the teaching of polarimetry. According to the results, the benefits of the contextualization are beyond the class and the undergraduating students became interested in control of quality of foods. From these results, it can be concluded that the experimental emphasis given is valid and creates motivation and interest for learning physico-chemistry, in comparison with the traditional methodology applied to teach polarimetry.

Formação docente no ensino superior de Química: contribuições dos programas de aperfeiçoamento de ensino

The literature on the challenges of teacher education in undergraduate chemistry teaching is limited. In the present study, the application of didactic proposals elaborated by two authors of this paper, graduate students and teaching assistants of the teaching improvement program at University of São Paulo, was investigated in terms of their contribution to the teaching assistants' education and undergraduate students' receptivity toward them. Such proposals were based on the jigsaw cooperative learning strategy and applied in two undergraduate courses. The results indicate students' good receptivity and suggest their importance to teaching assistants' education.

Físico-química experimental: uma proposta para abordar equilíbrio de fases em sistemas ternários

On undergraduate courses, practical classes represent periods in which students can verify the concepts presented in theoretical classes. Conversely, the teaching internship in graduate programs allows these students to incorporate pedagogical practices into their experience, predominantly involving observation and reproduction of methods adopted by supervisors. We propose internship teaching as a period for reflection on our pedagogical practice and present a methodology for an experimental physical chemistry classroom. The students can interact with the experiment and instructor, furthering the study of ternary systems while developing their skills for investigative work.

RESSONÂNCIA MAGNÉTICA NUCLEAR DE SUBSTÂNCIAS ORGANOFLUORADAS: UM DESAFIO NO ENSINO DE ESPECTROSCOPIA

Nuclear magnetic resonance is a technique that is widely used for elucidating and characterizing organic substances. Organofluorine substances have applications in many areas from drugs to liquid crystals, but their NMR spectra are often challenging due to fluoride coupling with other nuclei. For this reason, NMR spectra of this class of substances are not commonly covered in undergraduate and graduate chemistry courses and related fields. Thus, the aim of this work was the presentation and discussion of 1H, 13C, and 19F NMR spectra of eleven organofluorine substances which, in the case of 1H and 13C nuclei, showed classic patterns of first-order coupling and the effects of the fluorine nucleus in different chemical and magnetic environments. In addition, the observation of long distance coupling constants was possible through the use of apodization functions in the processing of the spectra. It is expected that the examples presented herein can be utilized and discussed in undergraduate and graduate NMR spectroscopy disciplines and thus improve the teaching and future research of organofluorine compounds.

Problems and potentialities of e-Learning for regular undergraduate courses in emergency medicine

BACKGROUND: E-learning techniques are spreading at great speed in medicine, raising concerns about the impact of adopting them. Websites especially designed to host courses are becoming more common. There is a lack of evidence that these systems could enhance student knowledge acquisition. GOAL: To evaluate the impact of using dedicated-website tools over cognition of medical students exposed to a first-aid course. METHODS: Prospective study of 184 medical students exposed to a twenty-hour first-aid course. We generated a dedicated-website with several sections (lectures, additional reading material, video and multiple choice exercises). We constructed variables expressing the student's access to each section. The evaluation was composed of fifty multiple-choice tests, based on clinical problems. We used multiple linear regression to adjust for potential confounders. RESULTS: There was no association of website intensity of exposure and the outcome - beta-coeficient 0.27 (95%CI - 0.454 - 1.004). These findings were not altered after adjustment for potential confounders - 0.165 (95%CI -0.628 - 0.960). CONCLUSION: A dedicated website with passive and active capabilities for aiding in person learning had not shown association with a better outcome.

METHODOLOGY FOR AUTOMATICALLY DELIMITING PERMANENT PRESERVATION AREAS ALONG WATER COURSES - THE USE OF GIS IN THE HYDROLOGICAL BASIN OF THE SERGIPE RIVER, BRAZIL

ABSTRACT Permanent Preservation Areas (PPAs) along watercourses have been the focus of numerous studies, not only because of the fragility and ecological relevance of riverine vegetation, but also because of the inefficiency demonstrated in conforming to the legislation protecting it. One of the major difficulties encountered in terms of guaranteeing the effective conservation of these riverside areas is the absence of methodologies that can be used to define them rapidly and accurately without manually determining the widths of the rivers or assigning only uniform linear values for the entire watercourse. The present work sought to develop a spatial analysis methodology capable of automatically defining permanent preservation areas along watercourses using geographic information system (GIS) software. The present study was undertaken in the Sergipe River basin, "considering the river itself and its principal affluents. We used the database of the Digital Atlas of Hydrological Resources (SEMARH/SE), and the delimitations of the PPAs were performed using ArcGIS 10.1 and the XToolPro 9.0 extension. A total of 5,003.82 hectares of Permanent Preservation Areas were delimited along the margins of the rivers analyzed, with a margin of error of <1% in delimiting the widths of the rivers within the entire area considered. The methodology described here can be used to define PPAs efficiently, relatively rapidly, and with very small margins of error, thus representing a technological advance in terms of using GIS for land management.

Agricultural engineering at UNICAMP: undergraduate student dropout analysis

Nowadays, dropping out in B.Sc. courses practically occurs in all Universities of the contemporary world. Undergraduate student withdraw could means several losses as, to the student, not to graduate, to the teacher, for not accomplishing his goal as educator, to the university, for not attending its mission, to the society, economic and social losses and also to the family for unfulfilling the dreams. The objective of this research is to present a quantitative study on the dropping out rate in the Agricultural Engineering B.Sc. program (BSAGENG) at State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), seeking to contribute to the understanding of this issue. It has been determined the dropping out rate from 1995 to 2006 based on the university official data, by employing four different methods of calculation. Three of the methods revealed that dropping out rate is very close to the graduation index, i.e., close to 50%. Regardless of the adopted method for the dropping rate estimation and the statistics demonstrating that the agricultural engineering undergraduate course at UNICAMP figures falls within similar courses normality in Brazil, it should be recognized that a public institution of education should be concerned in presenting such figures. A detailed and deep analysis must be outlined in further studies seeking for specific actions aiming to reduce dropping out process.

Applying Qt to programming courses

Työn tavoitteena on sovittaa Qt opetussuunnitelmaan. Työ sisältää Qt:n lyhyen historian sekä katsauksen sen nykytilaan. Nykytilakatsaus sisältää kolme näkökulmaa: miten ja missä Qt:ta voidaan käyttää, sekä sen käyttötarkoitukset teollisuudessa ja opetuksessa. Työn tuloksena syntyy luentodemonstraatiota varten pieni ohjelma, joka on luotu C++:n ja Qt Designerin avulla ja käyttää olennaisia käyttöliittymäkirjaston olioita. Toisena tuotteena työssä syntyy luonnos Lappeenrannan Teknillisen Yliopiston ohjelmointikursseista, joissa Qt:ta voitaisiin käyttää avustamaan opiskelijoita näkemään, miten graafinen ohjelma luodaan sekä valmentaa heitä ymmärtämään viitekehyksien ja graafisten kirjastojen tuomat edut.