Evaluation of the implementation process of a new mathematics curriculum for Grades 1-­‐9: A discussion of the main results

Recently, a new Mathematics curriculum for basic education (Grades 1-9) has been introduced in the Portuguese educational system. This curriculum was designed to bring together some disperse curricular documents and to substitute the former one that was being used since the early 90s. But, above all, the new curriculum was aimed at providing a more sustained development of students’ mathematical learning based upon recent international recommendations for mathematics teaching and learning. The new curriculum implementation was strongly supported by a special designed programme aimed at providing scientific and pedagogical support to all teachers of Grades 1-9 throughout all the schools of the country. Before its generalization to all basic education schools of the country, the new curriculum had been put into practice by 40 teachers of the different grade levels for a three-year period. These teachers had the opportunity to attend a number of workshops and to share their experiences in a variety of contexts. In fact, they functioned as a true network, working in close collaboration. Besides they were also in touch with the authors of the new curriculum to insure that it was put into practice according to the authors’ proposal. At the same time the Ministry of Education appointed a team of three mathematics educators to conduct a three-year evaluation study of the whole process of implementation of the new curriculum. An overview of this evaluation study will be presented: Besides, teachers’ classroom practices as well as the ideas they shared through their collaborative work, will be also presented and discussed. This discussion will illustrate some of the features of the new curriculum. As a matter of fact, data seem to suggest that some improvements are already visible, namely regarding students’ attitudes and competences and teachers’ practices. Tasks selected and used by the teachers, teaching strategies they used, and students’ work on those tasks will also be presented and analysed

The development of holistic face processing: an evaluation with the complete design of the composite task

The composite paradigm is widely used to quantify holistic processing (HP) of faces: participants perform a se- quential same-different task on one half (e.g., top) of a test-face relative to the corresponding half of a study-face. There is, however, debate regarding the appropriate design in this task. In the partial design, the irrelevant halves (e.g., bottom) of test- and study-faces are always different; an alignment effect indexes HP. In the complete design, besides alignment, congruency between the irrelevant and critical halves of the test-face is manipulated regarding the same/different response status of the study-face. The HP indexed in the complete design does not confound congruency and alignment and has good construct and convergent validities. De Heering, Houthuys, & Rossion (2007) argued that HP is mature as early as 4-year-olds but employed the partial design. Here we revisit this claim, testing four groups of 4- to 9/10 year-old children and two groups of adults. We found evidence of HP only from 6-year-olds on when considering the complete design, whereas significant alignment effects were found in the index adopted in the partial design already in 4-year-olds but which we demonstrate that reflects other factors besides HP, including response bias associated with congruency

Senior entrepreneurship: an emerging phenomenon

Silver Economy emerged, just over a decade ago, as a concept associated with the population aging, a demographic trend of the developed countries. Therefore, the objective of this study was to examine the current status of a Silver Economy emerging phenomenon, specifically, the senior entrepreneurship. To achieve this objective, a bibliographic search was conducted in the Scopus and Web of Science databases based on “Silver Economy” and “Entrepreneurship” keywords. Later, data of the sixteen selected articles were collected, namely, authorship, publication date, place where the study was developed (country), study type, methodology, objectives and findings. The studies were developed in four continents, specifically, Europe, America, Asia and Oceania. Most studies (82.4%) used secondary data. Eighth studies were quantitative and the remaining eighth were qualitative. The studies analyzed the association between the level and dynamics of population aging and the development of senior entrepreneurship; investigated the concept of Silver Economy and the senior entrepreneurship phenomenon, in its essence, nature, characteristics, challenges and leadership styles; compared financial literacy between older and younger entrepreneurs; identified internal factors that affect entrepreneurial activity; acknowledged individuals’ perceptions about entrepreneurship and its impact on entrepreneurial intention; highlighted the potential of senior population for businesses and the economy; reported entrepreneurial experiences of older people after retirement; and showed the effects of motives and attitudes on well-being and personal and professional fulfilment of elderly entrepreneurs in comparison with younger entrepreneurs.The authors are grateful to the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, Portugal) for financial support through national funds FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC) to CIMO (UIDB/00690/2020 and UIDP/00690/2020) and SusTEC (LA/P/0007/2020)info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

“A short story that wouldn’t work after the opening lines” : Frustrated Maternity in First-Person Narratives

I propose to offer an analysis of two first-person narratives, one fictional— “Jackson Pollock’s Curtains” by Sue Hubbard (in her 2008 volume, Rothko’s Red)—and the other, a memoir by Hilary Mantel, Giving Up the Ghost(2003), in order to explore two contrasting ways of dealing with situations of frustrated maternity. The differences will be illustrated by looking at the formal characteristics of the two texts, by references to painting, especially in the case of Hubbard’s short story, and by relating them to two of the types of narratives of illness as proposed by Arthur W. Frank in his The Wounded Storyteller (1995), namely: “chaos narrative” and “quest narrative.”info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Josafaz: Joaquim Lourenço faz

Traça-se o percurso de vida de vida do barrista Joaquim Lourenço, que assina as suas obras com o nome de Josafa

Os Castelos das Ordens Militares em Portugal: estado da investigação

Esta comunicação pretende fornecer um “ponto de situação”da investigação realizada em Portugal sobre castelos das Ordens Militares desde os anos 90 até à actualidade. Apresenta-se o conjunto de fortalezas que foi objecto de pesquisas e leituras arqueológicas, arquitectónicas e/ou históricas para as várias Ordens militares fundadas em Portugal ou aqui instaladas desde o período da chamada reconquista. Destacam-se os trabalhos de vários investigadores, as dimensões das suas abordagens, os avanços realizados e as limitações que subsistem

From clay is memory made

O documento encontra-se também em língua inglesaAnalisa-se a olaria numa perspectiva funcional, chamando a atenção para a sua utilidade, e por isso para a sua valorização, no passado. Fala-se na ergonomia das formas oláricas e nos seus usos e desusos, dando-se exemplos de peças que noutros tempos eram produzidas pelos oleiros, mas, porque deixaram de ser úteis deixaram de ser produzidas. Distingue-se entre a loiça de uso comum e a loiça de luxo. Chama-se a atenção para a necessidade de estudo dos processos de fabrico ao longo dos séculos e para a análise dos modos e das áreas de comercialização

O livro de receitas da fábrica de Miragaia : um mundo colorido

Analisa-se um documento manuscrito que inclui um conjunto de cento e vinte e seis receitas técnicas usadas na fábrica de loiça de Miragaia provavelmente no 2.ª quartel do século XIX. Conhecem-se muito poucos livros de receitas cerâmicas das antigas fábricas de faiança portuguesas motivo pelo qual este documento é de suma importância, quer pelo manancial de informações sobre o modo de fazer o vidro e as tintas na fábrica de Miragaia, quer pelo conhecimento que transmite sobre as matérias utilizadas na sua preparação, quer pelas receitas de pasta pó-de-pedra e de vidrados plumbíferos que nele se contém. Termina-se incluindo um útil dicionário com os vocábulos usados no livro de receitas

Os boiões e canudos de botica da Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Montemor-o-Novo

Neste texto estudam-se dois pares de boiões e canudos da botica da Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Montemor-o-Novo. Com base no inventário de 1781-82, refere-se a loiça que então compunha a botica – louça de barro, de vidro, louça branca ou faiança. Nesse inventário menciona-se também a aquisição em Estremoz de peças de «louça nova» cuja quantidade não é descriminada. Trata-se muito provavelmente de aquisição de recipientes em faiança feitos nas oficinas de Estremoz. É de crer que desta «loiça nova» adquirida em Estremoz fizesse parte o par de canudos de farmácia que chegou até aos nossos dias e que neste artigo se analisa

Rocha Peixoto: o gosto pela cerâmica e pelos seus artífices

Neste texto analisa-se a obra publicada por Rocha Peixoto sobre a cerâmica, comprovando-se a importância que este autor atribui ao trabalho de campo, ao uso do desenho e da fotografia, ao anotar dos dados recolhidos em cadernos de campo, à recolha de peças nos museus e à necessidade de pesquisar documentação de arquivo para melhor conhecer as olarias a estudar. Percorre-se a vasta obra do autor, analisando-se em pormenor os locais de produção cerâmica por ele referidos e procedendo-se ao levantamento das fotografias e desenhos que Rocha Peixoto possuía e que são hoje documentos imprescindíveis para quem estuda a cerâmica em Portugal