Teaching Chronobiology and Sleep Habits in School and University

ABSTRACT— Early morning school schedules are in the opposite direction to the sleep–wake cycle in adolescence and early adulthood. This conflict leads to sleep deprivation and irregular patterns whose consequences are scarcely explored. This article discusses the effects of three educational experiences with high school students, parents, teachers, and medical students. The first experience was developed with high school students in Natal, Brazil, to determine whether sleep habits would improve with increased awareness. Positive effects were observed in some aspects of sleep knowledge and practices. In the second experience in Atlanta, GA, sleep education activities were presented to middle and high school teachers, parents, and students to emphasize the importance of sleep. In the third program in Murcia, Spain, undergraduate medical students were introduced to chronobiology of sleep by a practical exercise that pointed out to what extent they shared most of adolescent sleep characteristics. Educational chronobiological experiences about sleep are essential to develop healthy sleep habits in the general population, particularly in students.     

Exploring teachers' knowledge of children's literature

In the context of the current debate about teaching reading, research to ascertain primary teachers' personal and professional reading practices was undertaken. The study explored teachers' reading habits and preferences, investigated their knowledge of children's literature, and documented their reported use of such texts and involvement with library services. Questionnaire responses were gathered from 1200 teachers. The data were analysed and connections made between the teachers' own reading habits and preferences, their knowledge of children's literature, their accessing practices and pedagogic use of literature in school. This paper reports on part of the dataset and focuses on teachers' knowledge of children's literature; it reveals that primary professionals lean on a narrow repertoire of authors, poets and picture fiction creators. It also discusses teachers' personal reading preferences and considers divergences and connections between these as well as the implications of the teachers' limited repertoires on the reading development of young learners.     

The differential influence of instructional context on the academic engagement of students with behavior problems

The teacher–student interactions of 39 students exhibiting high externalizing behavior problems and 59 students exhibiting average behavioral adjustment from urban elementary schools were directly observed. Comparisons between these students within four different instructional contexts indicated that levels of student engagement were significantly related to both behavior and classroom context. Although teachers’ use of behavioral management strategies was minimal, it was significantly related to the type of instructional context in which it occurred. Findings are discussed in terms of how different instructional contexts place unique demands and offer distinct affordances for students with behavior problems. A more comprehensive understanding of the influence of these environmental contexts can allow teachers to scaffold task demands to bring them within the domains of the student's ability.     

Academics in a New Work Environment: the Impact of New Public Management on Work Conditions

New public management (NPM) approaches have informed policy in the public sector in advanced countries in the last decade. Some authors suggest that the main objective of NPM at the organisational level is to change the traditional way professionals are regulated. This study examines the impact of NPM on the working conditions of Portuguese higher education academics. The empirical data are based on official statistics, and the analysis leads to the following conclusions. Changes have been slow, but already reveal a corrosion of traditional employment practices. Employment has become more precarious as professionals are increasingly employed on non-tenured contracts. This tendency is more evident in the polytechnic sector. In short, this means that the growth in skilled employment in higher education in Portugal is based on precarious employment relations.     

Using Portfolios for External Assessment: An Experiment in Portugal

This article describes some of the conclusions reached from an experiment using portfolios for art external assessment at the end of secondary education (age 17+) conducted in five Portuguese schools in 2001–2003. Several positive outcomes were found. Students found portfolios to be motivating and fostering constructive learning, dialogue and co‐operation between students and teachers. The new assessment procedures developed communities of assessors enabling some increased consistency of examination results and positive professional development opportunities. However some weaknesses were detected such as potential bias related to the degree of teacher aid and practical problems as, for example, time‐consuming in‐service teacher training.     

How Infants' Arousal Influences Their Visual Search

The influence of arousal on visual attention was examined in 6.5-month-old infants (N = 42) in the context of a visual search task. Phasic increases in arousal were induced with brief sounds and measured with pupil dilation. Evidence was found for an inverted U-shaped relation between pupil dilation amplitude and visual orienting, with highest likelihood of a target fixation at intermediate levels of arousal. Effects were similar for facial stimuli and simple objects. Together, these results contribute to our understanding of the relation between arousal and attention in infancy. The study also demonstrates that infants have a bias to orient to human eyes, even when presented in isolation.     

Indigenous knowledges as vital contributions to sustainability

International Review of Education -     

The Stability of Individual Differences in Basic Mathematics‐Related Skills in Young Children at the Start of Formal Education

The current study investigated the development of children's performance on tasks that have been suggested to underlie early mathematics skills, including measures of cardinality, ordinality, and intelligence. Eighty‐seven children were tested in their first (T1) and second (T2) school year (at ages 5 and 6). Children's performance on all tasks demonstrated good reliability and significantly improved with age. Correlational analyses revealed that performance on some mathematics‐related tasks were nonsignificantly correlated between T1 and T2 (number line and number comparison), showing that these skills are relatively unstable. Detailed analyses also indicated that the way children solve these tasks show qualitative changes over time. By contrast, children's performance on measures of intelligence and nonnumerical ordering abilities were strongly correlated between T1 and T2. Additionally, ordering skills also showed moderate to strong correlations with counting procedures both cross‐sectionally and longitudinally. These results suggest that, initially, mathematics skills strongly rely on nonmathematical abilities.     

Going virtual and going wide: comparing Team-Based Learning in-class versus online and across disciplines

Education and Information Technologies - Team-based learning (TBL) is an active learning pedagogy developed for in-class sessions and based on the collaborative work of small groups of students....     

Children and adolescents as political actors: Collective visions of politics and citizenship

This article presents a case study on the political thought and citizenship conceptions of children and adolescents. Considering children and adolescents as reflexive citizens and partners in community development processes, it is our purpose to understand the development of political thought, and particularly how children conceive the exercise of citizenship and participation. Participants were 97 children of a primary and middle secondary (basic) school, aged 5 to 14?years, organized into age groups of 12 children each. Focus group discussions were used as participatory research methodology which involves children as active collaborators, a method that appears to be a good alternative to the traditional individual interviews used in previous research. Results point to the existence of a developmental process of political thought that begins before the start of formal schooling, and a parallel evolution of the conception of social organization and the concepts of citizenship and participation.