1,843 research outputs found
Turning engineers into reflective university teachers
Increasing attention to quality and innovation in Higher Education (HE) is enhancing the pedagogic knowledge of faculty members and thereby encouraging the academic success of their students. This aim requires, from the institution and teachers, a greater degree of involvement than was previously the case. This is certainly borne out by experience in Portuguese universities. The growing concern of engineers with issues of pedagogy and academic success marks a sea change in the traditional conceptions of teaching and learning in Higher Education. There are, of course, indications that many academics are resistant to change. Our research indicates a tradition among Portuguese and Scottish academics to incline their effort toward research with a resultant decline in interest and effort on teaching. The present paper presents a meta-analysis of research conducted at the University of Aveiro (Portugal) and the University of Strathclyde (United Kingdom) between 2000 and 2004 involving academics who taught first-year introductory Programming courses. The purpose of our study was to promote reflection and research on teaching based issues as a strategy toward improved student learning. The findings of the study raised a number of salient issues for discussion and consideration. In this paper, we present some of these issues, aiming to explore the impact that the findings may have on teachers' attitudes towards teaching and students' learning in introductory programming courses
Insights on best teaching practices for promoting students' learning
The Department of Educational Sciences and the Department of Electronic and Telecommunications at the University of Aveiro (Portugal) have been working together with the Department of Computer and Information Sciences at the University of Strathclyde (UK), with the aim of improving the teaching and learning of introductory programming courses. Both institutions belong to the European Consortium of Innovative Universities (ECIU), with a commitment to "developing and implementing new forms of teaching, training, and research; to assuring an innovative culture within their walls; to experimenting with new forms of management and administration; and to sustaining and nurturing internationally-minded staff" (ECIU). Over the past two years, data has been collected through interviews, questionnaires and class observation, to better understand the organization of the different courses and approaches to teaching and learning. Members of academic staff have been actively involved in trying to enhance the students' learning experience through reflection on teaching methods and trying new ideas to aid student success. During this process we have assimilated insights on teaching philosophies, methods and suggestions for course redesign. As an important piece of the "puzzle", students also provided useful feedback on differing aspects of teaching and course organization. The present paper presents a meta-analysis of our findings on the relevance of teaching practices for promoting students' learning. In addition, we discuss the impact that teaching philosophies and course organization may have on best teaching practices
Three-loop Euler-Heisenberg Lagrangian and asymptotic analysis in 1+1 QED
In recent years, the Euler-Heisenberg Lagrangian has been shown to be a
useful tool for the analysis of the asymptotic growth of the N-photon
amplitudes at large N. Moreover, certain results and conjectures on its
imaginary part allow one, using Borel analysis, to make predictions for those
amplitudes at large loop orders. Extending work by G.V. Dunne and one of the
authors to the three-loop level, but in the simpler context of 1+1 dimensional
QED, we calculate the corresponding Euler-Heisenberg Lagrangian, analyse its
weak field expansion, and study the congruence with predictions obtained from
worldline instantons. We discuss the relevance of these issues for Cvitanovic's
conjecture.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, Talk given by C. Schubert at QFEXT09, Univ. of
Oklahoma, Norman, September 21 - 25, 2009, to appear in the conference
proceeding
Relatório: Qualidade da Investigação em Educação
Resumo não disponível
Contributions for innovative institutional research quality assessment practices and processes
The urge for the achievement of excellence patterns in research has led higher education institutions to become more and more aware of their role in the process by putting their strategic emphasis on the development of assessment tools towards the monitoring and evaluation of research quality. We intend to review the lessons learned from current research assessment experiences and collect good practices and recommendations using semi-directed interviews with evaluation panel members, institutions’ representatives and researchers involved in the last UK’s Research Assessment Exercise. Our major aim is to present and discuss a set of guidelines as a first input for the design of an evaluation framework to evaluate and monitor the quality of research at an institutional level. We seek to add significantly to our understanding of what can be actually done using strategic planning to look forward in the areas of research engagement/resources and institutional culture, productivity/ performance and innovation, quality/merit and impact and sustainability/ support. Overall, the challenges of promoting research are discussed and strategies for its enhancement are included
Isotope shifts and hyperfine structure of the Fe I 372 nm resonance line
We report measurements of the isotope shifts of the Fe I resonance line at 372 nm between all four stable
isotopes Fe, Fe, Fe, and Fe, as well as the
complete hyperfine structure of that line for Fe, the only stable
isotope having a non-zero nuclear spin. The field and specific mass shift
coefficients of the transition have been derived from the data, as well as the
experimental value for the hyperfine structure magnetic dipole coupling
constant of the excited state of the transition in Fe: MHz. The measurements were done by means of Doppler-free
laser saturated-absorption spectroscopy in a Fe-Ar hollow cathode using both
natural and enriched iron samples. The measured isotope shifts and hyperfine
constants are reported with uncertainties at the percent level.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure
The Euler-Heisenberg Lagrangian beyond one loop
We review what is presently known about higher loop corrections to the
Euler-Heisenberg Lagrangian and its Scalar QED analogue. The use of those
corrections as a tool for the study of the properties of the QED perturbation
series is outlined. As a further step in a long-term effort to prove or
disprove the convergence of the N photon amplitudes in the quenched
approximation, we present a parameter integral representation of the three-loop
Euler-Heisenberg Lagrangian in 1+1 dimensional QED, obtained in the worldline
formalism.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures, talk given by Christian Schubert at QFEXT11,
Benasque, Spain, Sept. 18-24, 2011, to appear in the conference proceeding
Quality Assurance System to monitor the teaching and learning process at the University of Aveiro (Portugal)
At the University of Aveiro (UA), in Portugal, institutional initiatives are being undertaken so that high levels of quality teaching and learning are achieved. This paper presents (a) the design of an evaluation model for quality assurance of teaching and learning and (b) the results of its application in a pilot study that ran in 2008/09 at the Departments of Electronics and Telecommunications, and Physics, of the UA. The Quality Assurance System (QAS) to monitor the process of teaching and learning at the UA emerges as extremely important, not only to regulate the teaching and learning process, following the quality assurance orientations at a national and international level, but also to reflect and share teaching practices that enhance the whole academic experience, both from students, teachers, and researchers‟ perspectives. The authors explore the design of the model and some findings of the pilot study, more specifically the identification of problematic and good practice situations identified by the students‟ survey and reports
Linking educational research to institutional measures of quality enhancement: a Portuguese project
At the University of Aveiro (UA), an institutional initiative is taking place for assessing and monitoring the quality of teaching and learning in Higher Education. The Quality Assurance System (QAS) of the teaching and learning process at the UA emerges as extremely important, not only to regulate the teaching and learning process, following the quality assurance orientations at a national and international level, but also to reflect and share teaching practices that enhance the whole academic experience, both from the students, the teachers, and researchers’ perspective. The authors explore the design of the model and a research study that aims to integrate the perspectives of students and teachers, through the analysis of quantitative and qualitative data - gathered in the evaluation model, so that: (i) intervention strategies/activities can be conceptualised for coping with the identified problems; (ii) a set of guidelines can be designed for the improvement of the evaluation model and associated instruments, and (iii) the QAS model and its results can be discussed with academia in terms of strengths and weaknesses aiming to engage them in the process of monitoring. This study is an effort to conciliate the educational research carried out by members of the Laboratory for the Evaluation of Educational Quality and the institutional framework for quality assurance
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