The role performed by the teacher’s question in the learning of quadratic function in an exploratory mathem

Communication plays a key role in teaching and learning processes. Questions are a communicational act greatly used by teachers to structure their discourse, establish dynamics, and foster interaction between the different participants in the classroom. In view of these potentialities of questions in the classroom context, we have developed a teaching experiment with the aim of understand the role of the teacher's question in the learning of topics on functions. Considering the nature of this aim, a methodology of qualitative and interpretative nature was used. The data collection was based on the students’ written productions and on the audio and video recordings of a mathematics class of a Grade 10 educational group (in northern Portugal). Data analysis is based on content analysis techniques, crossing collected data and categories emerging from the literature. The study revealed that the teacher’s questions alternated between confirmation, focalization, and inquiry, with inquiry prevailing. Questions aimed at testing the student’s knowledge gave both the teacher and actual student important information. Questions that focused the student’s attention on a particular detail enabled the students to organize their reasoning and structure their answer. Questions that required the students to explain or justify their thoughts were those that proved to most contribute to the development of the student’s reasoning process.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Job crafting and job performance: The mediating effect of engagement

The main purpose of this study was to investigate whether work engagement mediates the relationship between job crafting and job performance. To this end, the following hypotheses were formulated: (1) job crafting establishes a positive and significant association with job performance; (2) job establishes a positive and significant association with work engagement; (3) work engagement establishes a positive and significant association with job performance; (4) work engagement mediates the association between job crafting and job performance. The sample was composed of 453 participants working in organisations based in Portugal. The hypotheses formulated in this study were tested by performing simple and multiple linear regressions. The results indicated that only increasing structural job resources and increasing challenging job demands established a positive and significant association with task performance. Increasing structural job resources, increasing social job resources, and increasing challenging job demands established a positive and significant association with citizenship performance and work engagement. Work engagement established a positive and significant association with task performance and citizenship performance. Only a partial mediating effect, through work engagement, was observed on the association between increasing challenging job demands and task performance, and between increasing social job resources and citizenship performance.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis – Sodium Valproate and Vancomycin?

A prevalência de reacções adversas a medicamentos (RAM) em doentes hospitalizados é estimada em 10 -20% e estas podem ser potencialmente fatais. A necrólise epidérmica tóxica (NET) é uma das apresentações de RAM mais severa, com baixa incidência mas mortalidade elevada. Os autores apresentam o caso de uma mulher de 79 anos, com doença cerebrovascular hemorrágica grave, pós -traumática, com necessidade de internamento em cuidados intensivos que, sob terapêutica com meropenem, vancomicina e valproato de sódio, desenvolveu um quadro de NET. Para identificação do fármaco responsável realizou -se teste de transformação linfoblástica (TTL). Os índices de estimulação obtidos foram 3. Apesar de ser ainda um instrumento de investigação, o TTL foi decisivo na confirmação da base imunológica da reacção. Vancomicina e valproato de sódio estão totalmente contraindicados nesta doente

O humor em manuais escolares de matemática

O humor tem larga presença na vida das pessoas, combinando elementos afetivos e cognitivos com o intuito de bem-dispor. Para além dos contextos de lazer, o humor tem também sido utilizado em contextos associados ao trabalho, nomeadamente nas escolas, colocado ao serviço do ensino. Sendo os manuais escolares um recurso muito utilizado pelos professores, particularmente pelos de Matemática, pareceu-nos pertinente: (i) averiguar a utilização do humor em manuais escolares de Matemática; e (ii) descrever o humor utilizado nos manuais, discutindo o seu enquadramento didático. Para isso, submetemos a análise de conteúdo quatro manuais escolares de Matemática (dos 4.º e 5.º anos de escolaridade) com larga difusão nacional. Os resultados revelam que o humor, tanto no texto como na ilustração, não tem praticamente expressão nos manuais. Ainda assim, todos os manuais valorizam, ao nível da ilustração, situações de boa disposição, apresentando, recorrentemente, pessoas a rir.Humor has a wide presence in people's lives, combining affective and cognitive elements with the intention of well-being. In addition to the leisure contexts, humor has also been used in contexts associated with work, namely schools, placed at the service of teaching. Since school textbooks are a resource widely used by teachers, particularly those of mathematics, it seems pertinent to us: (I) to access the usage of humor in Mathematics school textbooks; and (ii) describe the humor used in textbooks and discuss their didactic framework. For this, we submitted, to content analysis, four textbooks of Mathematics (of the 4th and 5th grades) with wide national diffusion. The results reveal that humor, both in the text and in the illustration, has practically no expression in the textbooks. Even so, all textbooks value, at the illustration level, light-hearted situations, presenting repeatedly, people laughing.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Humor in mathematics teaching

HUMOR: OUR VIEW FOR MATHEMATICS TEACHING Our assumptions and context. Process humor and be able to produce is clearly a sign of intelligence, revealing, when done well, complex reasoning. Humor has an important social role, assuming as a cognitive experience that as well as creating a sense of well-being, predisposes people to work and can improve the productivity of that work. Mathematics is a discipline in which the reasoning occupies a very prominent place, both as a science as a school area. At the same time, students' interest for mathematics is not always the same and some have initially not very favorable feelings (Toh, 2009; Wanzer, Frymier & Irwin, 2010). Recent curriculum changes to the teaching of mathematics have been, in most countries of the world, showing the need for students to develop skills of critical nature, such as communication, thinking and problem solving along with the acquisition of mathematical knowledge. Also in Portugal, it is claimed the importance of promoting learning that combine the construction of mathematical knowledge with its use, when performing mathematical tasks and communicating mathematical ideas and mathematical reasoning. In the early years of schooling, corresponding to primary education in many countries, the use of texts such as short stories or comics, from which we can develop challenging mathematical tasks, is reported in the literature as having potential to promote learning specified in curricular documents (Wanzer, Frymier., & Irwin, 2010). In particular, some texts focus on mathematical topics in a humorous way and to be understood, students must develop their mathematical competence. The development of mathematical tasks from stories and other humorous presents big challenges to teachers (Flores & Moreno, 2011). Our questions. In this context, we put some questions: Primary teachers use in their classes tasks or situations that present, in a humorous way, mathematical ideas? What resources do they use? Also: How to select, adapt or build texts and tasks which have, in a humorous way, mathematical ideas with didactic potential for education in the early years of schooling? If the resources for this purpose have been produced and if teachers have been sensitized for their use, are they able to integrate them in their classes? Our intentions. This research project seeks to address these questions, focused on: (i ) assessment of teachers’ practices and underlying knowledge, resources available for the use of texts with mathematical ideas presented in a humorous way; (ii) selection, adaptation and construction of mathematical tasks from texts that present, in a humorous way, mathematical ideas with didactic potential in education for the early years of schooling; and ( iii ) integration and use, by primary school teachers, of texts that present , in a humorous way, contexts for the teaching of mathematics. So, the project is organized into three tasks and as a methodological design that combines qualitative elements with quantitative elements, the first one prevailing

Design opportunities for wearable devices in learning to climb

In this paper, we present a field study on the learning of climbing aimed at defining the design space of wearable devices to support beginners. Three main findings have emerged from our study. First, climbing has a strong emotional impact on beginners; therefore, learning to climb requires mastering new motor patterns as well as negative emotions, such as stress and fear. Second, the feeling of danger that climbers often experience can be mitigated by trust in the climbing partner and the perception of her active presence. Finally, a big problem in climbing is the communication difficulty between the climbing partners and between climber and instructor. We conclude the paper presenting four design considerations for the design of wearable devices meant to support the learning of climbing by providing the actors involved with augmented communication. Such augmented communication should address both the physical and the emotional difficulties of this sport

Strengths and Weaknesses for Climate Change: Adaptation in Water Governance: A Comparison Across Six European Regions

This chapter comparatively analyses the policy and governance contexts of six European regions that are affected by different hydrological impacts of climate change. The results demonstrate that a major governance strength across regions lies in the organization of management capacities to deal with existing water-related risks. For example, the Dutch context focuses on water safety, Cyprus has a clear policy framework to deal with water scarcity and in the Norwegian city of Bergen, wastewater is well managed. As a consequence of this focus on present-day risks, climate adaptation governance also focuses on historical risks. New or exacerbated risks posed by climate change remain largely untreated, and responsibilities for dealing with climate-related risks remain unspecified, as also becomes clear in the German and Spanish cases. A high degree of governmental fragmentation is identified as another point of weakness. Identified most clearly in the Portuguese case but recognizable in all regional contexts, different subdomains of water management are dealt with under separate policies and are governed by different responsible agencies. Consequently, information about current performance of the water system is scattered and coordinative efforts, which are key to developing adaptation strategies, are hampered

Room temperature paramagnetism of ZnO:Mn films grown by RF-sputtering

ZnO:Mn transparent thin films (thickness b1 μm) with the Mn contents ranging from 1.8 to 3.25 at.% were grown by RF magnetron co-sputtering. The films are nanocrystalline, with wurtzite-structure grains of a typical size of 20 nm and with a preferential orientation of the c-axis perpendicular to the surface. According to the Raman spectroscopy data, Mn mostly substitutes Zn in the lattice sites. In spite of these factors, the nanostructure and the Mn(Zn) substitution, that are considered favorable for ferromagnetism in this material, both magnetic resonance and Faraday effect measurements show paramagnetic behavior of the ZnO:Mn films and the absence of ferromagnetic order at room temperature.FCT throughproject PTDC/FIS/72843/200