The formation of conscience : pedagogy of the sacred

This qualitative study explores Thomas Green's (1999) treatise, Voices: The Educational Formation of Conscience; for the purpose of reconstruing the transformative usefulness of conscience in moral education. Conscience is "reflexive judgment about things that matter" (Green, 1999, p. 21). Paul Lehmann (1963) suggested that we must "do the conscience over or do the conscience in" (p. 327). Thomas Green "does the conscience over", arguing that a philosophy of moral education, and not a moral philosophy, provides the only framework from which governance of moral behaviour can be understood. Narratives from four one-to-one interviews and a focus group are analysed and interpreted in search of: (a) awareness and understanding of conscience, (b) voices of conscience, (c) normation, (d) reflexive emotions, and (e) the idea of the sacred. Participants in this study (ages 16-21) demonstrated an active awareness of their conscience and a willingness to engage in a reflective process of their moral behaviour. They understood their conscience to be a process of self-judgment about what is right and wrong, and that its authority comes from within themselves. Narrative accounts from childhood indicated that conscience is there "from the beginning" with evidence of selfcorrecting behaviour. A maturing conscience is accompanied by an increased cognitive capacity, more complicated life experiences, and individualization. Moral motivation was grounded in " a desire to connect with things that are most important." A model for conscience formation is proposed, which visualizes a critical path of reflexive emotions. It is argued that schools, striving to shape good citizens, can promote conscience formation through a "curriculum of moral skills"; a curriculum that embraces complexity, diversity, social criticism, and selfhood.

The Nutritional Knowledge, Eating Habits, and Body Image of Adolescent Females

This mixed methods investigation examined the nutritional knowledge and habits of adolescent girls in grades 9 through 12 at a secondary school in southern Ontario. Through questionnaires, interviews, and the use of teaching and curriculum documents, this study attempted to understand whether the current nutrition curriculum is influential in developing students' nutritional knowledge, healthy eating habits, and a favourable body image. Data collection occurred over a 2-month period, involving 90 female participants, and the data analysis program SPSS was used for analysis of the quantitative questionnaire data. Interview data were organized into categories, and analysis of any emerging themes occurred. Teaching and curriculum documents were examined to determine any overlap and develop an understanding of the participants' exposure and experience within nutrition within the classroom setting. The findings of this study suggest that the current nutrition education did have an impact on the participants' nutrition knowledge. However, the impact on their eating habits and body image was limited in the context it was measured and tested. The knowledge learned within the classroom may not always be applied outside of the classroom. This study suggests that improvement in the current nutrition curriculum may be needed to have a bigger impact on adolescent females. The findings from the study shine light on areas of improvements for educators as well as development of future curriculum. Changes may need to be made not only in the specific curriculum content and expectations but also the delivery of it by the classroom teacher.

Structural aspects of the ribosome evolution and function

Les résultats ont été obtenus avec le logiciel "Insight-2" de Accelris (San Diego, CA)

Dealing with complexity: an autopoietic view of the People's Planning Campaign, Kerala

Complexity is integral to planning today. Everyone and everything seem to be interconnected, causality appears ambiguous, unintended consequences are ubiquitous, and information overload is a constant challenge. The nature of complexity, the consequences of it for society, and the ways in which one might confront it, understand it and deal with it in order to allow for the possibility of planning, are issues increasingly demanding analytical attention. One theoretical framework that can potentially assist planners in this regard is Luhmann's theory of autopoiesis. This article uses insights from Luhmann's ideas to understand the nature of complexity and its reduction, thereby redefining issues in planning, and explores the ways in which management of these issues might be observed in actual planning practice via a reinterpreted case study of the People's Planning Campaign in Kerala, India. Overall, this reinterpretation leads to a different understanding of the scope of planning and planning practice, telling a story about complexity and systemic response. It allows the reinterpretation of otherwise familiar phenomena, both highlighting the empirical relevance of the theory and providing new and original insight into particular dynamics of the case study. This not only provides a greater understanding of the dynamics of complexity, but also produces advice to help planners implement structures and processes that can cope with complexity in practice.

Understanding stakeholder requirements on an NHS hospital project: application of semiotics-rooted theories.

Hospitals represent complex and difficult contexts for AEC (architecture, engineering and construction) professionals to engage with due to their functional complexity and diversity of stakeholder interests (i.e. patient, visitor, medical specialist). Hospital designers need to take note of changing NHS policy contexts (e.g. the possible empowerment of general practitioners to shape services), technological advances in medical equipment design and the potential health needs of future generations. It is imperative for hospital designers and architects to align their processes and methodologies (e.g. briefing and requirements capture) to the needs and desires of their clients so that a medical facility design is produced which is truly aligned to the requirements of the hospital stakeholders. Semiotics, the “study” or “discipline” of signs aims to investigate the nature of signs (their inception, representation and meaning), whilst semiotics-rooted theories are concerned with investigating how meaning and understanding is mobilized between persons and between organisations. This paper details a semiotics-rooted research approach for investigating the interactions between hospital designers and stakeholders on a forthcoming NHS hospital project in the UK. A semiotics grounded study will potentially provide a deeper understanding of how meaning and understanding is established between hospital project stakeholders and construction professionals.

Measuring the value of “all play and no work”: can rigorous assessment of simulation games drive innovative teaching in construction?

The construction field is dynamic and dominated by complex, ill-defined problems for which myriad possible solutions exist. Teaching students to solve construction-related problems requires an understanding of the nature of these complex problems as well as the implementation of effective instructional strategies to address them. Traditional approaches to teaching construction planning and management have long been criticized for presenting students primarily with well-defined problems - an approach inconsistent with the challenges encountered in the industry. However, growing evidence suggests that employing innovative teaching approaches, such as interactive simulation games, offers more active, hands-on and problem-based learning opportunities for students to synthesize and test acquired knowledge more closely aligned with real-life construction scenarios. Simulation games have demonstrated educational value in increasing student problem solving skills and motivation through critical attributes such as interaction and feedback-supported active learning. Nevertheless, broad acceptance of simulation games in construction engineering education remains limited. While recognizing benefits, research focused on the role of simulation games in educational settings lacks a unified approach to developing, implementing and evaluating these games. To address this gap, this paper provides an overview of the challenges associated with evaluating the effectiveness of simulation games in construction education that still impede their wide adoption. An overview of the current status, as well as the results from recently implemented Virtual Construction Simulator (VCS) game at Penn State provide lessons learned, and are intended to guide future efforts in developing interactive simulation games to reach their full potential.

Universo encantado do cuidado na autopoiese docente: uma viagem epistemológica transdisciplinar

The health transition experienced in Brazilian health care model requires a metamorphosis in human and society, placing new demands on health and education. The Faculty of Science, Culture and Extension of Rio Grande do Norte (Facex), aware of their responsibilities to the Health System, which brings the principle of comprehensiveness as its structural axis, dared to implement a course of nursing in complex thinking and Experiential Pedagogy Humanescente with curriculum inter / transdisciplinary. For deployment of proprosta was not enough to reform thinking of educators, there was a need corporalizar new teaching practices that are aimed at the integral formation of human beings. In this context, emerged the workshop on Human Education autopoietic, self-forming area of the educator, where he developed an Action Research Existential (PA-E) which enabled experience, describe and analyze how the human autopoietic educators could contribute to the practice educational humanescente transdisciplinary curriculum project. Were worked out in meetings, knowledge necessary to practice the transdisciplinary 1st Meeting - learn to create; 2nd Meeting - learn to recognize the laws of nature with emphasis on complexity theory, 3rd Meeting - learn to organize, 4th meeting - namely autoestruturar themselves; 5th Meeting - know how to choose, 6th Meeting - knowing innovate 7th Meeting - namely exchange. Next an autobiographical perspective, we chose the metaphorical possibility to narrate the ways and strategies covered by the author and apprentice in the company of the Little Prince de Saint-Exupery, in search of a sensible pedagogical practice complex, which promotes re-enchant transdisicplinar education. The route involved five methodological connections: a literature review which relate to training for care in undergraduate nursing: the study of learning processes that drive the formation humanopoiética, emphasizing the relationship that involves the complexity and embodiment in the educational process transdisciplinary, highlighting the analysis of what is to learn from the findings of biosciences and recent cognitive theories of Maturana and Varela, the description of the interdisciplinary curriculum of the nursing course of Facex and Training Workshop, Human autopoietic, with emphasis on Experiential Education Humanescente; the report of seven meetings of the Workshops (cocoon), recording the experiences and listening to educators (luminescent butterflies), the final reflections with learning opportunized. Experientiality lived through, the expressions and words, educators say the influence of workshops for their teaching practices, highlighting it as a space for selforganizing, creating, learning and enchantment, and can identify the workshop as a place of transformation necessary for deployment an interdisciplinary curriculum. The knowledge emerging from the study indicate the need for permanent spaces of self, in which the educator learns from its body, between cognitive processes and vital, and in the experiences of their formative process the opportunity to act on the dimensions of knowing and being

O significado atribuído por licenciandos ao currículo de Biologia numa perspectiva CTSA

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Sucessão ecológica: análise das concepções de estudantes ingressantes em um curso de Biologia por meio da história e transposição deste conceito

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Construção de estatutos de ciência para a biologia numa perspectiva histórico-filosófica: uma abordagem estruturante para seu ensino

Pós-graduação em Educação para a Ciência - FC

A fraternidade e a educação para a paz: possibilidades pedagógicas

Na preocupação com o processo de formação profissional o olhar deste estudo em questão voltou-se para o processo de formação continuada, em especial um curso de extensão denominado “Escola de Educadores” que tem como temática a compreensão da fraternidade e da educação para paz como possibilidades pedagógicas. Sendo assim, o objetivo da pesquisa foi esclarecer a proposta do curso e averiguar a produção de material dos participantes e a relação com a temática em questão. Trata-se de um estudo que tem na abordagem de análise qualitativa o seu ponto de referência, privilegiando o estudo exploratório. Como resultado aponta-se que o curso possui uma estrutura coerente com seus objetivos e apresenta ações pedagógicas planejadas e sistematizadas, de caráter teórico e/ou prático que não são inseridas na estrutura curricular dos cursos regulares de graduação ou pós e possibilitam o “repensar pedagógico” do professor. Sobre a produção de material, notou-se a incorporação das temáticas trabalhadas pelo curso na leitura dos trabalhos de conclusão e iniciativas inovadoras nos estágios. Em caráter de conclusão entende-se que o curso de extensão, apresenta-se como uma oportunidade de formação, mas também um universo de novas experiências e desafios.

Biology Teachers'Conceptions of the Diversity of Life and the Historical Development of Evolutionary Concepts

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Biology of bone tissue: structure, function, and factors that influence bone cells

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Traces, Patterns, Texture: In Search of Aesthetic Teaching/Learning Encounters

This inquiry reveals the crucial guidance of teachers toward surveying the capacity and needs of students, the formation of ideas, acting upon ideas, fostering connections, seeing potential, making judgments, and arranging conditions. Each aesthetic trace causes me to wonder how teachers learn to create experiences that foster student participation in the world aesthetically. The following considerations surface: • Given the emphasis in schools on outcomes and results, how do we encourage teachers to focus on acts of mind instead of end products in their work with students? • Given the orientations toward technical rationality, to fixed sequence, how do we help teachers experience fluid, purposeful learning adventures with students in which the imagi¬nation is given room to play? • Given the tendency to conceive of planning in teaching as the deciding of everything in advance, how do we help teachers and students become attuned to making good judgments derived from within learning experiences? • How do we help teachers build dialogical multivoiced conversations instead of monolithic curriculum? • What do we do to recover the pleasure dwelling in subject matter? How do we get teachers and students to engage thoughtfully in meaningful learning as opposed to covering curriculum7 • A capacity to attend sensitively, to perceive the complexity of relationships coming together in any teaching/learning experience seems critical. How do we help teachers and students attend to the unity of a learning experience and the play of meanings that arises from such undergoing and doing? The traces, patterns, and texture evidenced locate tremendous hope and wondrous possibilities alive within aesthetic teaching/learning encounters. It is such aliveness I encountered in the grade 4 art classroom that opened this account and continues to compel my attention. Possibilities for teaching, learning, and teacher education emerge. I am convinced they are most worthy of continued pursuit.

Reconstruction and analysis of the NF-kB pathway interactome: a systems biology approach

Background. One of the phenomena observed in human aging is the progressive increase of a systemic inflammatory state, a condition referred to as “inflammaging”, negatively correlated with longevity. A prominent mediator of inflammation is the transcription factor NF-kB, that acts as key transcriptional regulator of many genes coding for pro-inflammatory cytokines. Many different signaling pathways activated by very diverse stimuli converge on NF-kB, resulting in a regulatory network characterized by high complexity. NF-kB signaling has been proposed to be responsible of inflammaging. Scope of this analysis is to provide a wider, systemic picture of such intricate signaling and interaction network: the NF-kB pathway interactome. Methods. The study has been carried out following a workflow for gathering information from literature as well as from several pathway and protein interactions databases, and for integrating and analyzing existing data and the relative reconstructed representations by using the available computational tools. Strong manual intervention has been necessarily used to integrate data from multiple sources into mathematically analyzable networks. The reconstruction of the NF-kB interactome pursued with this approach provides a starting point for a general view of the architecture and for a deeper analysis and understanding of this complex regulatory system. Results. A “core” and a “wider” NF-kB pathway interactome, consisting of 140 and 3146 proteins respectively, were reconstructed and analyzed through a mathematical, graph-theoretical approach. Among other interesting features, the topological characterization of the interactomes shows that a relevant number of interacting proteins are in turn products of genes that are controlled and regulated in their expression exactly by NF-kB transcription factors. These “feedback loops”, not always well-known, deserve deeper investigation since they may have a role in tuning the response and the output consequent to NF-kB pathway initiation, in regulating the intensity of the response, or its homeostasis and balance in order to make the functioning of such critical system more robust and reliable. This integrated view allows to shed light on the functional structure and on some of the crucial nodes of thet NF-kB transcription factors interactome. Conclusion. Framing structure and dynamics of the NF-kB interactome into a wider, systemic picture would be a significant step toward a better understanding of how NF-kB globally regulates diverse gene programs and phenotypes. This study represents a step towards a more complete and integrated view of the NF-kB signaling system.