O director de turma como mediador entre o concelho de turma, os alunos, e os encarregados de educação: Contributos para a avaliação da direcção de turma

O presente estudo tem como objectivo investigar o reconhecimento e a relevância do papel do Director de Turma enquanto gestor intermédio para os alunos, os encarregados de educação e para os próprios, tendo em conta a interface inter-relacionai em que a função se desenvolve. Este trabalho teve como pressupostos de base a convicção de que a Educação é um fenómeno complexo que, para além de outras, mobiliza dimensões sociológicas, psicológicas e epistemológicas, além de necessitar, constantemente, de reflexão sobre as suas práticas. Assim, conscientes de que o papel do Director de Turma é de grande importância nas organizações escolares, foi nosso objectivo estudá-lo sob o ponto de vista teórico a partir de uma reflexão na prática e efectuar um estudo empírico do modo como a função é percepcionada como elo de ligação entre os Alunos, os Encarregados de Educação e a Escola. Aborda-se a figura do Director de Turma, enquanto gestor pedagógico intermédio da organização escolar, tendo em conta as atribuições que lhe são consagradas na lei e a forma como os demais parceiros vêm a sua função, em especial numa Escola do 2º e 3° ciclos do Ensino Básico, de acordo com as perspectivas/representações dos próprios actores educativos. O estudo visou em concreto, proporcionar uma análise sustentada do reconhecimento e valorização da figura do Director de Turma enquanto mediador entre o aluno, os encarregados de educação e a Escola. Pretendeu-se, nomeadamente, questionar teórica e empiricamente, a interacção e a articulação entre a formação pessoal, a actuação e as representações dos Directores de Turma. Assim, investigou-se de que modo o Director de Turma, considerado como um agente de mediação, é ou não reconhecido e valorizado enquanto figura responsável pela ligação do aluno e do seu encarregado de educação à Escola. Como opção metodológica optou-se por um estudo de caso, recorrendo à complementaridade entre os procedimentos quantitativos e qualitativos, de acordo com os objectivos visados. Assim, as técnicas de recolha de dados utilizados neste estudo foram o inquérito, por questionário, e a entrevista. Estes instrumentos foram sendo sucessivamente aperfeiçoados. Participaram, a nível do inquérito por questionário, duas turmas, uma do 2° ciclo e outra do 3° ciclo (num total de 45 alunos e respectivos encarregados de educação) e a nível da entrevista, os dois Directores de Turma das turmas envolvidas. Procurou-se, deste modo, contribuir para elucidar em que medida a figura do Director de Turma é reconhecida e valorizada como elo de ligação entre os Alunos, os Encarregados de Educação e a Escola enquanto gestor intermédio. Nas Conclusões após o confronto entre as questões de partida, o quadro teórico e os resultados do estudo empírico, discutem-se as dificuldades e limitações que um estudo desta natureza envolve. Avança-se, por fim, com algumas sugestões que a investigação realizada permite, no sentido de utilizar o conhecimento produzido para melhorar o relacionamento entre o Aluno, os Encarregados de Educação e a Escola e, consequentemente, o processo ensino-aprendizagem. ABSTRACT; The purpose of this study is to investigate the recognition and relevance of the role of the classroom director as an intermediate supervisor to the students, the parents and the classroom director himself, having in mind the inner- relation interface the function takes place. This work was conceived on the basic notion that Education is a complex-phenomenon, setting in motion, among other things, sociological, psychological and epistemological dimensions, as well as requiring, frequently, reflection about its practices. Therefore, conscious of the fact that the role of the class director is of enormous importance within a school environment, our aim was to study it from the theoretical point of view by a reflection in practice and performing an empirical analysis on the way it is understood as a link among the students, parents and the school. The role of classroom director is thus analysed as a pedagogical director in a school setting. Taking into consideration the rights conferred to him/her by law and the way all the other partners assign to the class director, particularly in a 2nd and 3rd cycle of the Elementary School system, in accordance with the perspectives/representations of the education actors. More specifically, this study is an in-depth analysis of the recognition and the valuation of the class director figure as a mediator among the pupils, the parents and the school. ln other words, the interaction between theory and practice in the daily performance of the classroom director were questioned and studied for further analysis. Hence, questioned the way in which the classroom director, seen as a mediation agent, could be considered as a coordinator, recognized and valorized as the responsible figure by the linking among the pupil and his/her parents to the school. The case was realized in the 2nd and 3rd cycle of an elementary school in the Alentejo. As a methodological option, quantitative and qualitative processes were both employed, thus keeping in line with the main objective of this work. Therefore, the data collected and herein utilized were the result of queries, i.e., questionnaires and personal interviews. The former were addressed at the pupils of two classes, one of the 2nd cycle and another of the 3rd cycle of the school and their parents (45 pupils and the same number of parents in total), and the two classroom directors of the classes implicated in the study. ln the Conclusion, a balance of the study is presented, comparing the initial research questions, the theoretical framework, and the results of the empirical analysis developed. A few suggestions are presented from the experience gained in this investigation, i.e., using the knowledge acquired in order to improve and enrich the relationship among the pupils, the parents, the school, and the teaching learning process.

2.7 Lincoln University Senior Class of 1935

After graduation, Lloyd Gaines filed papers with placement office at Lincoln but he could not find an immediate position. Although he minored in education, Gaines was not primarily searching for a teaching position. However, he had a backup plan. Lloyd's background in history led him to an interest in the law and unbeknownst to anyone, save his mentor, Lorenzo Greene, he was preparing to what no American-American had done before. Lloyd Gaines was going to enroll in the University Missouri School of Law.

On the zeros of the Abelian integrals for a class of Liénard systems

A planar polynomial differential system has a finite number of limit cycles. However, finding the upper bound of the number of limit cycles is an open problem for the general nonlinear dynamical systems. In this paper, we investigated a class of Liénard systems of the form x'=y, y'=f(x)+y g(x) with deg f=5 and deg g=4. We proved that the related elliptic integrals of the Liénard systems have at most three zeros including multiple zeros, which implies that the number of limit cycles bifurcated from the periodic orbits of the unperturbed system is less than or equal to 3.

Evaluation of separation management algorithms in Class G airspace

Use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in support of government applications has already seen significant growth and the potential for use of UAVs in commercial applications is expected to rapidly expand in the near future. However, the issue remains on how such automated or operator-controlled aircraft can be safely integrated into current airspace. If the goal of integration is to be realized, issues regarding safe separation in densely populated airspace must be investigated. This paper investigates automated separation management concepts in uncontrolled airspace that may help prepare for an expected growth of UAVs in Class G airspace. Not only are such investigations helpful for the UAV integration issue, the automated separation management concepts investigated by the authors can also be useful for the development of new or improved Air Traffic Control services in remote regions without any existing infrastructure. The paper will also provide an overview of the Smart Skies program and discuss the corresponding Smart Skies research and development effort to evaluate aircraft separation management algorithms using simulations involving realworld data communication channels, and verified against actual flight trials. This paper presents results from a unique flight test concept that uses real-time flight test data from Australia over existing commercial communication channels to a control center in Seattle for real-time separation management of actual and simulated aircraft. The paper also assesses the performance of an automated aircraft separation manager.

Documenting reproduction and inequality : revisiting Jean Anyon’s “Social class and school knowledge”

Jean Anyon’s (1981) “Social class and school knowledge” was a landmark work in North American educational research. It provided a richly detailed qualitative description of differential, social-class-based constructions of knowledge and epistemological stance. This essay situates Anyon’s work in two parallel traditions of critical educational research: the sociology of the curriculum and classroom interaction and discourse analysis. It argues for the renewed importance of both quantitative and qualitative research on social reproduction and equity in the current policy context.

Security metrics for object-oriented class designs

Measuring quality attributes of object-oriented designs (e.g. maintainability and performance) has been covered by a number of studies. However, these studies have not considered security as much as other quality attributes. Also, most security studies focus at the level of individual program statements. This approach makes it hard and expensive to discover and fix vulnerabilities caused by design errors. In this work, we focus on the security design of an object oriented application and define a number of security metrics. These metrics allow designers to discover and fix security vulnerabilities at an early stage, and help compare the security of various alternative designs. In particular, we propose seven security metrics to measure Data Encapsulation (accessibility) and Cohesion (interactions) of a given object-oriented class from the point of view of potential information flow.

Virtual reality or virtually real : blended teaching and learning in a Master's level research methods class

This paper examines the enabling effect of using blended learning and synchronous internet mediated communication technologies to improve learning and develop a Sense of Community (SOC) in a group of post-graduate students consisting of a mix of on-campus and off-campus students. Both quantitative and qualitative data collected over a number of years supports the assertion that the blended learning environment enhanced both teaching and learning. The development of a SOC was pivotal to the success of the blended approach when working with geographically isolated groups within a single learning environment.

A Numerical Solution Using an Adaptively Preconditioned Lanczos Method for a Class of Linear Systems Related with the Fractional Poisson Equation

This study considers the solution of a class of linear systems related with the fractional Poisson equation (FPE) (−∇2)α/2φ=g(x,y) with nonhomogeneous boundary conditions on a bounded domain. A numerical approximation to FPE is derived using a matrix representation of the Laplacian to generate a linear system of equations with its matrix A raised to the fractional power α/2. The solution of the linear system then requires the action of the matrix function f(A)=A−α/2 on a vector b. For large, sparse, and symmetric positive definite matrices, the Lanczos approximation generates f(A)b≈β0Vmf(Tm)e1. This method works well when both the analytic grade of A with respect to b and the residual for the linear system are sufficiently small. Memory constraints often require restarting the Lanczos decomposition; however this is not straightforward in the context of matrix function approximation. In this paper, we use the idea of thick-restart and adaptive preconditioning for solving linear systems to improve convergence of the Lanczos approximation. We give an error bound for the new method and illustrate its role in solving FPE. Numerical results are provided to gauge the performance of the proposed method relative to exact analytic solutions.

Middle-class histrionics

Review of 'God of Carnage', Queensland Theatre Company, published in The Australian, 11 May 2009.

Class language

How social class factors into linguistic practices and use, language change and loss has been a major theme in postwar sociolinguistics and ethnography of communication, language planning and sociology of language. Key foci of linguistic and sociological research include the study of social class in everyday language use, media and institutional texts. A further concern is to understand the relationship between social class stratification, intergenerational social reproduction, and language variation. Bourdieu’s model of linguistic habitus and cultural capital offers a broad theoretical template for examining these relations, even as they are complicated by forces of economic and cultural globalization, new media and identity formations.

'When everything old is new again' : class, consumerism and masculinity in Alasdair Duncan's Metro

Alasdair Duncan’s narrative Metro, set in Brisbane in the early twenty-first century, focuses on Liam, an unapologetically self-styled ‘white, upper middle-class brat’ whose sense of place and identity is firmly mapped by spatial and economic co-ordinates. This article considers the linkages between spatiality and identity in Duncan’s narrative, as well as the ways in which traditional, hegemonic (heterosexual) forms of masculinity are re-invigorated in the enactment of an upper-middle-class script of success, privilege and consumerism. It argues that the safeguarding of these hegemonic forms of masculine identity involves strategies of spatial and bodily expression underpinned by conspicuous consumption, relegating other forms of sexual identity to an exploitable periphery

Teachers and the emotional dimensions of class in resource-affected rural Australia

In recent years, a 'cultural turn' in the study of class has resulted in a rich body of work detailing the ways in which class advantage and disadvantage are emotionally inscribed and embodied in educational settings. To date, however, much of this literature has focused on the urban sphere. In order to address this gap in the literature, this paper focuses on the affective evaluations made by teachers employed in rural and remote Australian schools of students' families, bodies, expectations and practices. The central argument is that moral ascriptions of class by the teachers are powerfully shaped by dominant socio-cultural constructions of rurality that equate 'the rural' with agriculture.