Avaliar para aprender: um processo reflexivo e colaborativo potenciador da aprendizagem em biologia

Relatório de estágio de mestrado em Ensino de Biologia e Geologia no 3º Ciclo do Ensino Básio e no Ensino SecundárioO reconhecimento da importância da promoção da construção de uma visão da avaliação como um processo inerente à própria aprendizagem, que implica o aluno numa ação de reflexão, de interdependência positiva, de compromisso e de corresponsabilidade, e do desenvolvimento de práticas letivas em consonância com esta perspetiva, conduziu à idealização, conceção, implementação e avaliação de uma estratégia de intervenção pedagógica assente, fundamentalmente, em processos de auto e heteroavaliação num contexto colaborativo. A intervenção pedagógica desenvolveu-se na temática Fotossíntese da disciplina de Biologia e Geologia do 10º ano de escolaridade do Curso Científico-Humanístico de Ciências e Tecnologias. A consecução dos processos de auto e heteroavaliação efetuou-se através da sua operacionalização conjunta em quatro atividades de coavaliação, concebidas segundo uma estrutura dialógica, orientada para a resolução de um problema/situação problemática e, consequentemente, para a compreensão do respetivo conhecimento substantivo. A avaliação da intervenção pedagógica centrou-se na compreensão da natureza do processo de coavaliação das aprendizagens desenvolvido pelos alunos, na identificação do valor educativo atribuído pelos alunos ao papel da heteroavaliação da aprendizagem após terem experienciado este processo e na identificação de fatores de facilitação e de constrangimento na implementação de atividades de coavaliação. Os alunos desenvolveram o processo de coavaliação assumindo um posicionamento crítico sobre a sua aprendizagem e a dos colegas, tendo incidido não só na qualidade científica das explicações às situações problemáticas mas, também, na deteção das causas subjacentes a possíveis falhas e na capacidade de perspetivar ações passiveis de contribuir para o desenvolvimento da aprendizagem. A heteroavaliação é visualizada pelos alunos como um processo positivo para a aprendizagem. A sua utilidade na promoção da aprendizagem e o posicionamento ético assumido pelos alunos na construção de um discurso avaliativo, justo e coerente são apontados como fatores facilitadores da implementação de atividades de coavaliação. O receio em cometer erros na avaliação do trabalho dos colegas e a falta de conhecimentos necessários para efetuar essa mesma avaliação são os principais constrangimentos sentidos pelos alunos.The recognition of the importance of promoting the construction of a vision of evaluation as a process inherent to learning, which involves students in an action of reflection, positive interdependence, commitment and co-responsibility, and the need to develop practices in this perspective, led to the idealization, design, implementation and evaluation of an pedagogical strategy based primarily on processes of peer and self-assessment in a collaborative context. The pedagogical intervention was developed in the thematic Photosynthesis in the field of Biology and Geology of the 10th grade on the course of Scientific-Humanistic of Sciences and Technologies. The attainment of the peer and self-assessment processes was made up through its joint operational in four co-assessment activities, designed according to a dialogical structure, oriented to the resolution of an question/problem and, consequently, for understanding of the respective scientific knowledge. The evaluation of pedagogical intervention focused on understanding the nature of the peer and self-assessment process developed by students, in identifying the educational value attributed by the students to the role of peer-evaluation of their learnings after they experienced this process and to identify facilitating factors and constraints to the implementation of peer and self-assessment activities. Students developed the peer and self-assessment process assuming a critical position, about their learning and the learnings of their colleagues, which covered not only the quality of scientific explanations to problematic situations, but also the detection of possible underlying causes of failures and the ability to perspective actions that contribute to the development of learning. Students showed a vision of peer-assessment as a positive process for learning. As factors that facilitate the implementation of peer and self-assessment activities students indicated their usefulness in the development of learning and the ethical position they made in building a fair and consistent evaluative discourse. As constraints were indicated the fears about making mistakes when evaluating the work of colleagues and lack of knowledge necessary to make that evaluations

Avaliação colaborativa em biologia: um tempo de aula transformado em tempo de aprendizagem

O reconhecimento da importância da promoção da construção de uma visão da avaliação como um exercício ético que implica o aluno numa ação de reflexão, de interdependência positiva, de compromisso e de corresponsabilidade, e da transformação de um tempo de práticas de avaliação em tempo de aprendizagem, conduziu à idealização, conceção, implementação e avaliação de uma estratégia de intervenção pedagógica assente, fundamentalmente, em processos de auto e heteroavaliação num contexto colaborativo. A intervenção pedagógica desenvolveu-se na temática Fotossíntese da disciplina de Biologia e Geologia do 10º ano de escolaridade do Curso Científico-Humanístico de Ciências e Tecnologias. Foi concretizada no 2º período do ano letivo de 2011/2012 com uma turma de 29 alunos de uma Escola Secundária/3, localizada no distrito de Braga, na região norte de Portugal. A consecução dos processos de auto e heteroavaliação efetuou-se através da operacionalização conjunta em quatro atividades de aprendizagem, concebidas segundo uma estrutura dialógica, orientada para a resolução de um problema/situação problemática e, consequentemente, para a compreensão do respetivo conhecimento substantivo. Uma primeira avaliação do impacto educativo da estratégia de intervenção pedagógica evidencia um efeito na (re)construção das perspetivas dos alunos sobre o valor da heteroavaliação na aprendizagem. Os resultados encontrados reforçam a importância da implementação de atividades de aprendizagem focalizadas na reflexão sobre o papel da avaliação na aprendizagem

Monitoring historical masonry structures with operational modal analysis : two case studies

Two monuments in Portugal are being monitoring by the University of Minho: the Clock Tower of Mogadouro and the Church of Jerónimos Monastery, in Lisbon. Vibration sensors and temperature and relative air humidity sensors are installed in the two monuments. Operational modal analysis is being used to estimate the modal parameters, followed by statistical analysis to evaluate the environmental effects on the dynamic response. The aim is to explore damage assessment in masonry structures at an early stage by vibration signatures as a part of a heath monitoring process to preserve the historical constructions. The paper presents all the preceding dynamic analysis steps before the monitoring task, which includes the installation of the monitoring system, the system identification and subsequent FE model updating analysis, the automatic modal identification and the investigation of the influence of the environment on the identified modal parameters

Coleman meets Schwinger

It is well known that spherical D-branes are nucleated in the presence of an external RR electric field. Using the description of D-branes as solitons of the tachyon field on non-BPS D-branes, we show that the brane nucleation process can be seen as the decay of the tachyon false vacuum. This process can describe the decay of flux-branes in string theory or the decay of quintessence potentials arising in flux compactifications.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure

Permeability coefficients and vapor pressure determination for fragrance materials

Objective This study aims to correlate new experimental data relevant to the description of the combined evaporation/permeation process of a perfume applied onto the skin. Methods The vapor pressure data was measured by thermogravimetric analysis (TG‐DTA). The Antoine constants and the Clarke & Glew parameters were determined for the same set of fragrance molecules to describe its low vapor pressures at new temperature ranges. The permeability coefficient of a set of 14 fragrance molecules in ethanolic solution was determined by Franz diffusion cell experiments, using porcine skin. The samples were analyzed by gas chromatography with a flame ionization detector (GC/FID) and high‐performance liquid chromatography with UV visible detector (HPLC/UV). A QSAR model was proposed to correlate the experimental data. Results The Antoine constants were determined and presented low standard deviations. The Clarke & Glew physically significant parameters were obtained along with its statistical analysis. The fitting is good since the magnitude order is in accordance with the literature, associated with the low correlation between the estimated parameters and low standard deviations. The presented correlation, based on a mixture using only ethanol as solvent, showed better results than previous QSAR models with a standard relative deviation (σr) of 0.190, a standard error (SE) of 0.397, and a determination coefficient (R2) of 0.7786. Conclusion The dataset is still small compared to larger and more general QSAR models; however, it is much more specific as to the type of solvent and class of materials studied. This work represents an advance for the modeling of the perfume diffusion process since it specifies important properties that until then had been treated in a more general way.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Identification of Radial Glia-like Cells in the Adult Mouse Olfactory Bulb

Immature neurons migrate tangentially within the rostral migratory stream (RMS) to the adult olfactory bulb (OB), then radially to their final positions as granule and periglomerular neurons; the controls over this transition are not well understood. Using adult transgenic mice with the human GFAP promoter driving expression of enhanced GFP, we identified a population of radial glia-like cells that we term adult olfactory radial glia-like cells (AORGs). AORGs have large, round somas and simple, radially oriented processes. Confocal reconstructions indicate that AORGs variably express typical radial glial markers, only rarely express mouse GFAP, and do not express astroglial, oligodendroglial, neuronal, or tanycyte markers. Electron microscopy provides further supporting evidence that AORGs are not immature neurons. Developmental analyses indicate that AORGs are present as early as P1, and are generated through adulthood. Tracing studies show that AORGs are not born in the SVZa, suggesting that they are born either in the RMS or the OB. Migrating immature neurons from the adult SVZa are closely apposed to AORGs during radial migration in vivo and in vitro. Taken together, these data indicate a newly-identified population of radial glia-like cells in the adult OB that might function uniquely in neuronal radial migration during adult OB neurogenesis.Stem Cell and Regenerative Biolog

A comprehensive comparison of voltage and current control techniques for three-phase VSI converters

Converting electrical energy from direct current to alternate current, or vice versa, is one of the most frequently performed tasks in today’s electrical systems. The Voltage Source Inverter (VSI) is the most widely used topology to accomplish this task. This paper compares the performance of three control algorithms for voltage source inverter (VSI) with PI, PR and MP control algorithms were applied for voltage control and current control. For voltage control the VSI synthesizes the sinusoidal voltage system for an islanded application. In current control the VSI injects energy into the power grid by synthesizing sinusoidal currents. A general comparison is made of the performance of the three control algorithms under the presented conditions, helping to choose the control algorithm to use in a given application.This work has been supported by FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UIDB/00319/2020. This work has been supported by the FCT Project QUALITY4POWER PTDC/EEI-EEE/28813/2017, and by the FCT Project DAIPESEV PTDC/EEI-EEE/30382/2017. Mr. Luis A. M. Barros is supported by the doctoral scholarship PD/BD/143006/2018 granted by the Portuguese FCT foundation

Monitoring of historical masonry structures with operational modal analysis: Two case studies

Two monuments in Portugal are being monitoring by the University of Minho: the Clock Tower of Mogadouro and the Church of Jerónimos Monastery, in Lisbon. Vibration sensors and temperature and relative air humidity sensors are installed in the two monuments. Operational modal analysis is being used to estimate the modal parameters, followed by statistical analysis to evaluate the environmental effects on the dynamic response. The aim is to explore damage assessment in masonry structures at an early stage by vibration signatures as a part of a heath monitoring process to preserve the historical constructions. The paper presents all the preceding dynamic analysis steps before the monitoring task, which includes the installation of the monitoring system, the system identification and subsequent FE model updating analysis, the automatic modal identification and the investigation of the influence of the environment on the identified modal parameters.(undefined

Delivery of antimicrobial peptides for the treatment of mycobacteriosis

Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which resides inside macrophages, has always been recognized as one of the most “successful” pathogens. Standard treatments have already been used for decades and, therefore, resistances to the first-line medicines are increasing. Additionally, poor patient compliance with stringent therapies is often pointed out as a major reason leading to treatment failure. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), a promising new class of broad spectrum antibiotics, are less prone to result in pathogen resistances due to their target (cellular membranes) and rapid action. In our laboratory we search for AMPs with potent activity against mycobacteria and try to develop efficient delivery systems based on self-assembled colloidal nanocarriers. Additionally, this systems are expected to reduce peptide toxicity and enhance selective uptake on infected cells. Finally, the use of encapsulated drugs in mycobacterial therapy may help reducing drug administration schedules which would ultimately improve patient compliance

Metabolite profile of Nectandra oppositifolia Nees & Mart. and assessment of antitrypanosomal activity of bioactive compounds through efficiency analyses

EtOH extracts from the leaves and twigs of Nectandra oppositifolia Nees & Mart. shown activity against amastigote forms of Trypanosoma cruzi. These extracts were subjected to successive liquid-liquid partitioning to afford bioactive CH2Cl2 fractions. UHPLC-TOF-HRMS/MS and molecular networking were used to obtain an overview of the phytochemical composition of these active fractions. Aiming to isolate the active compounds, both CH2Cl2 fractions were subjected to fractionation using medium pressure chromatography combined with semi-preparative HPLC-UV. Using this approach, twelve compounds (1-12) were isolated and identified by NMR and HRMS analysis. Several isolated compounds displayed activity against the amastigote forms of T. cruzi, especially ethyl protocatechuate (7) with EC50 value of 18.1 μM, similar to positive control benznidazole (18.7 μM). Considering the potential of compound 7, protocatechuic acid and its respective methyl (7a), n-propyl (7b), n-butyl (7c), n-pentyl (7d), and n-hexyl (7e) esters were tested. Regarding antitrypanosomal activity, protocatechuic acid and compound 7a were inactive, while 7b-7e exhibited EC50 values from 20.4 to 11.7 μM, without cytotoxicity to mammalian cells. These results suggest that lipophilicity and molecular complexity play an important role in the activity while efficiency analysis indicates that the natural compound 7 is a promising prototype for further modifications to obtain compounds effective against the intracellular forms of T. cruzi