Models and methodology for simulating virtual enterprises in educational environment

This paper deals with a semester-long educational experience the authors led at the University of Calabria for reproducing current developments and uncertainties in real-world concurrent engineering, knowledge management practice and virtual enterprise organization. Students with different backgrounds (mechanical engineering, computer science engineering and management engineering) were selected in order to form a laboratory class and then were divided into many multidisciplinary teams. Such teams played different roles and were required to collaborate on the Web to simulate a virtual enterprise, which was aimed at designing virtual prototypes of average complexity articles. In addition to that, any team was involved in the construction of a knowledge base for codifying the explicit knowledge arising from the execution of technical and managerial tasks. The paper deals with models, methodologies and technologies that have been used in this laboratory experience and, moreover, it describes an approach for simulating, in an educational environment, some aspects of the behaviour of virtual enterprises generated by a virtual organization.     

Teaching Modern Chemistry through ‘Recurrent Historical Teaching Models’

Today there are little more of 3 million chemist all over the world producing about 800,000 papers a year. They produce new substances – from some hundreds in 1800 to about 20 million now – the vast majority artificial. This rate is growing quite fast. Once the majority of chemistry teachers all over the world used textbooks as the main (sometimes the only) source of information, we became, without wanting to... history teachers! If ‘scientific literacy’ is the aim of science lessons in school, it is much more than the literacy now developed in science classrooms. It must include an understanding of the nature and process by which scientific activities are carried out. Recognition of the exponentially chemistry knowledge growth and the incompleteness of the current chemistry textbooks are thus intimately related to recognition of the need for recurrent historical teaching models.     

Individual Differences in Childhood Behavior Disorders Associated With Epigenetic Modulation of the Cortisol Receptor Gene

Behavioral/emotional difficulties in children are the first sign of mental health problems. These problems are however, heterogeneous. A domain that may identify homogenous subgroups is hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal function. This study tested whether epigenetic regulation of glucocorticoid receptor gene could explain the co‐occurrence of anxiety problems in children with behavior problems. Four‐ to 16‐year‐old clinically referred children (N = 241) were measured for psychiatric symptoms, methylation of target CpG sites in blood or saliva, and morning cortisol levels in those who gave blood. Increased methylation of promoter 1F CpG sites was associated with higher vulnerability to co‐occurring internalizing symptoms and morning cortisol. The results support increasing optimism that epigenetic regulation of key neuroendocrine systems might help explain hitherto unfathomable individual differences in susceptibility to psychiatric symptom profiles.     

Second Chance Programmes: a response to educational needs in compulsory education

This paper asks whether the integrated training provision currently offered through the different Spanish Second Chance Programmes (SCPs) constitutes a valid response to the educational needs and deficits known to exist among those young people who do not satisfactorily complete the Compulsory Secondary Education stage (ESO). The objectives of the current Social Guarantee Programmes (SGPs) are examined, as are the characteristics of the young people who participate in them. The Programmes of Initial Vocational Qualification (PCPI) envisaged in the most recent educational legislation are also discussed. Having identified the key factors which the empirical studies suggest influence the effectiveness of these programmes in addressing the educational needs and training deficiencies of the young people involved, a number of proposals are presented in connection with the training needs of teaching staff. The paper concludes with a number of proposals for improving the educational response to the challenges that the new perspectives and expectations raise for the development of a system of inclusive education to overcome the education deficits of the young people concerned.     

The Nature of Scientific Practice and Science Education

There is, broadly speaking, an agreement within the international science education community that comprehension of the nature of science (NOS) should be a key element in the scientific literacy of citizens. During the last few decades, several didactic approaches have emerged concerning what and how to teach NOS. Also, one of the basic objectives of science education is for students to become familiar with the skills typical of scientific practice; however, there is little reference to their need to also acquire meta-knowledge about scientific practice (i.e., an understanding of the nature of scientific practice). Among other reasons, this may be due to NOS being essentially identified in most of the predominant proposals with the nature of scientific knowledge. But why not plan the teaching of science to be in tune with real scientific practice for students to learn about the nature of scientific practice at the same time as they are learning science? The answer to this question has given rise to a proposal grounded in ten essential pedagogical principles for the teaching and learning of science in secondary school. These are the principle of formulating questions, the principle of creativity and imagination, the principle of experimentation, the principle of procedural diversity, the principle of errors as opportunity, the principle of modeling, the principle of cooperation and teamwork, the principle of argumentation and discussion, the principle of communication, and the principle of evaluation. The purpose of this article is to present the justification and fundaments of these principles.     

Developing an audiovisual notebook as a self‐learning tool in histology: Perceptions of teachers and students

Videos can be used as didactic tools for self‐learning under several circumstances, including those cases in which students are responsible for the development of this resource as an audiovisual notebook. We compared students' and teachers' perceptions regarding the main features that an audiovisual notebook should include. Four questionnaires with items about information, images, text and music, and filmmaking were used to investigate students' (n = 115) and teachers' perceptions (n = 28) regarding the development of a video focused on a histological technique. The results show that both students and teachers significantly prioritize informative components, images and filmmaking more than text and music. The scores were significantly higher for teachers than for students for all four components analyzed. The highest scores were given to items related to practical and medically oriented elements, and the lowest values were given to theoretical and complementary elements. For most items, there were no differences between genders. A strong positive correlation was found between the scores given to each item by teachers and students. These results show that both students' and teachers' perceptions tend to coincide for most items, and suggest that audiovisual notebooks developed by students would emphasize the same items as those perceived by teachers to be the most relevant. Further, these findings suggest that the use of video as an audiovisual learning notebook would not only preserve the curricular objectives but would also offer the advantages of self‐learning processes. Anat Sci Educ 7: 209–218. © 2013 American Association of Anatomists.