Difficulties in Learning Thermodynamic Concepts Are They Linked to the Historical Development of this Field?

Students' misunderstanding of basic thermodynamic concepts is analysed on historicalgrounds. The persistence of some ideas from the caloric model are found to be reinforced bymagnitude names and unit definitions that were brought up at the early stages of thermodynamic development. The failure of many popular textbooks to make a clear distinction between internal energy and heat is also explored and related to Students' learning difficulties. Some hints that may help to improve Students' understanding are presented.     

Gender discourse about an ethic of care: nursery schoolteachers' perspectives

In this paper we will show some of the results of research which took place in the Principality of Asturias (Spain). Its purpose was finding out the gender discourses used by nursery teachers. Although we will not provide an exhaustive list of all the conclusions reached so far, we will put forward one of the aspects which has been developed throughout the investigation; that is, we will discuss some of our observations and hypotheses on the differences observed by the teachers in boys and girls' caring and supporting behaviours. In order to do so, we focus on the type of discourse related to the ethic of care. We consider it a tool which allows teachers to build a type of narrative in which boys and girls are presented as opposites, relational and different from one another.     

Writing difficulties in Alzheimer’s disease and mild cognitive impairment

The present study addresses the scope of the writing difficulties observed in patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Patients with AD, patients with MCI and healthy controls performed a written picture-naming task and a direct copy transcoding task in which phonology-to-orthography (P–O) consistency was manipulated. Written latencies, inter-letter durations, mean word pen pressure and number of errors were measured. Results revealed that there was a significant difference between the control group and both groups of patients in written latencies and number of errors. However, in inter-letter interval or mean pen pressure there were significant differences only between the group with AD and the other groups. P–O consistency and the type of task produced similar effects in the three groups of participants, suggesting a general deficit affecting the ability to access/generate orthographic representations. The relevance of these results for understanding the spelling impairment in AD and MCI are discussed.

     

Participants’ views of the use of video in lesson study in higher education in Spain: An exploratory multiple case study

Abstract

Lesson study (LS) is a process through which teachers design, teach and discuss a lesson collaborating with colleagues. Sometimes, it includes video recording the lesson so teachers can use videos to later discuss the lesson and its improvement, however, there is little research addressing the consequences of doing it. This article investigates participants’ perceptions and use of video within LS. Results show that participants perceived video in LS as viable and with potential to stimulate reflection and to improve lessons, but also evince that video affects the outcomes, management and sustainability of LS. We analyze and discuss its potential and the challenges it poses, suggesting ideas for its implementation.     

Portuguese spelling in primary grades: complexity,length and lexicality effects

Reading and Writing - This study investigates spelling abilities of 189 second, third, and fourth graders using a word and pseudoword dictation task in European Portuguese. We analyzed the effect...     

Development of educational software for the teaching of telecommunication engineering by using MATLAB

The characteristics of a set of software tools developed for teaching are exposed in this work. This package is designed for telecommunication engineering students in order to facilitate the study of applied electromagnetism and communication theory concepts: theoretical guided propagation, practical training in radiation and radiocommunication laboratory. The programs are made under a MATLAB environment which provides great capabilities for graphical purposes. The programs are designed as user-friendly and interactive tutorials and they can be used as a powerful tool for improving the teaching process.