Student Feedback and Its Impact on Fostering the Quality of Teaching at the Academia

To be sure about the effective and less effective/ineffective approaches to course instruction, we hold the opinion that the faculty members need regular feedback from their students in order to be aware of how well or unwell their teaching styles have worked when instructing the courses. It can be confirmed without a slightest hesitation that undergraduate students' motivated-ness can be sustained when continually improving the quality of teaching and properly sequencing the academic courses both, in the curricula and timetables. At Estonian Aviation Academy, four different forms of feedback are used: Lecture monitoring, questionnaires for all students, study information system subject monitoring and direct feedback received by the lecturer. Questionnaires for all students are arranged once during a study year and separately for the first year and senior students. The results are discussed in academic departments together with student representatives, analyzed with the teaching staff and, if needed, improvements are suggested. In addition, a monitoring system is planned where a lecturer acts in both roles – as an observer and as the lecturer. This will foster better exchange of experience and through this help to make the whole study process more interesting

Oswaldo Costa, Antropofagia, y la crítica caníbal de la modernidad colonial

Oswaldo Costa was a key member of the Brazilian modernist Antropofagia (Anthropophagy) movement of the late 1920s, yet he has been largely forgotten by critics and marginalized from national cultural history. Costa articulated —as no other member of the movement did, including his famous leader Oswald de Andrade— an Antropofagia intellectually engaged in what we call a cannibal critique of colonial modernity and Occidentalism. Costa’s Antropofagia cannibalized the historical archive, reading against the grain of a triumphant Western imperial history. Throughout his contributions to the Revista de Antropofagia, he questioned Brazil’s cultural allegiance to Europe, pointed out the existence of asynchronous temporalities within Brazil, and defied Eurocentric notions of civilization and progress that ideologically structure Brazilian nationalism in the ninetieth and twentieth centuries. He also enacted an anthropophagous re-reading of Brazilian historiography against its celebration of colonialism and proposed the necessity of a cultural decolonization. This article analyzes Costa’s principal contributions to Antropofagia and rescues his hitherto overlooked countercolonial thought from the oblivion of collective forgetting. Moreover, it examines Costa’s significant view of Brazilian modernity as a perfidious armistice with other barbarous temporalities, and of the Westernization of Brazil as a deceptive appearance that hides ever-present colonial antagonisms.Oswaldo Costa fue un miembro fundamental del movimiento modernista Antropofagia de finales de la década de 1920. Pese al olvido crítico de su obra y a su exclusión de la historia cultural brasileña, Costa articuló —como acaso ningún otro miembro del movimiento, incluyendo a su famoso líder Oswald de Andrade— una Antropofagia-otra, intelectualmente trabada en lo que denominamos una crítica caníbal de la modernidad colonial y del Occidentalismo. A diferencia de la mayoría de sus contemporáneos, Costa acometió la lectura digestiva y a contrapelo del archivo nacional y de la historia triunfal imperial y occidentalista sobre la que descansaba el imaginario nacional. En sus contribuciones a la Revista de Antropofagia, Costa cuestionó la pertenencia cultural de Brasil a Europa y a Occidente, señaló la existencia de temporalidades asincrónicas en el Brasil, y desafió las nociones eurocéntricas de civilización y progreso que informaron ideológicamente el nacionalismo brasileño de los siglos XIX y XX. Costa también adelantó una relectura antropofágica de la historiografía brasileña contra su celebración del colonialismo y propuso la necesidad de una descolonización cultural. Este artículo analiza las principales contribuciones de Costa a Antropofagia y rescata su —injustamente olvidado— pensamiento contra-colonial. Además, examina su concepción de la modernidad brasileña como un armisticio pérfido entre Occidente y otras temporalidades bárbaras y su visión de la occidentalización de Brasil como una apariencia engañosa que escondería antagonismos coloniales irresueltos

Reflexões sobre Maquiavel

São muitas as interpretações negativas ou positivas que Ma- quiavel recebeu ao longo dos séculos. Já em seu próprio século Bodin se referiria ao escritor florentino ora como o primeiro que, segundo minha opinião, escreveu sobre a república, depois que, por cerca de mil e duzentos anos, a falta de cultura tomou conta de todas as coisas que circulavam pela boca de todos; e não há dúvida de que teria escrito mais, com mais verdade e melhor, se tivesse unido à experiência os escritos dos antigos filósofos e historiadores Methodus ad facilem historiarum cognitionem, 1566) ora como um teórico das tiranias, afirmando, no prefácio de seus Seis livros da república (1576), que temos como exemplo um Maquiavel que teve sua voga entre os mercadejadores de tiranos e que pôs, como os dois fundamentos das repúblicas, a impiedade e a injustiça, acusando a religião como contrária ao Estado