Teacher Competence Frameworks in Europe: policy-as-discourse and policy-as-practice

This article analyses the growing focus on teacher competences in European policy discourse against the backdrop of global convergences in education reforms. It traces key ideas, policy recommendations, peer learning and documents which underscore the relevance of teacher quality for education improvement, as recently stressed in the European Commission Communication and Staff Working Documents Rethinking Education. The intertwining of teacher competence frameworks with other areas of education policy is outlined — key competences in school education, the quality of initial teacher education, and the continuous professional development of teachers — teasing out reasons for their central role. Some insights from research and peer learning then explore key implications in the defining and implementing of teacher competence frameworks in national education systems. A comparative viewpoint further analyses current policy trends about teacher competences across European national contexts, in discourse and practice. In order to do so, a framework of analysis takes into account system features as key variables affecting national policy — roles and responsibilities of stakeholders, governance and education cultures, and the status of the teaching profession. Across the variety of policy practices, the analysis endeavours to trace some emerging patterns and trends, highlighting paradigmatic national examples, with some food for thought.     

How the New Web Generations are Changing Library and Information Services

The new Web generations are influencing the minds and changing the habits of software developers and end users. Users, librarians, and information services professionals can interact more efficiently, creating additional information and content and generating knowledge. This new scenario is also changing the behavior of information providers and users in health sciences libraries. This article reviews the new Web environments and tools that give librarians opportunities to tailor their services better, and gives some examples of the advantages and disadvantages for them and their users. Librarians need to adapt to the new mindset of users, linking new technologies, information, and people.     

Introducing History (and Philosophy) of Science in the Classroom: A Field Research Experience in Italy

For quite some time, many EU and Italian Ministry of Education official documents have warmly suggested the introduction of the history and the philosophy of science in the teaching of science disciplines at school. Accordingly, there is a shared agreement between pedagogists and science historians about the efficacy of this approach towards an understanding of the current curriculum content and the Nature of Science. What is missing, at least in Italy, is a concrete fieldwork in the classroom to show the validity of these declarations. This essay is a report of the experience of introducing history and philosophy of science into junior and senior high school classrooms in Apulia (Italy). The aims of this project are: (a) to build a model of research involving high school teachers and university lecturers in the design and construction of teaching units that use the story of science and epistemology for teaching science and (b) produce evidence that this approach is effective in getting more interest from students in science. We relied on many schools for carrying out the historical-scientific teaching modules. The modules were carried out through the case study approach. In the first phase, the participating teachers were trained by University tutors on the modalities of this particular teaching approach. In the second phase, the teachers carried out the modules in their classes and finally these modules were presented in a conclusive conference. Moreover, we evaluated the efficacy of the intervention through specifically created agreement questionnaires.     

Newborns' face recognition: role of inner and outer facial features

Existing data indicate that newborns are able to recognize individual faces, but little is known about what perceptual cues drive this ability. The current study showed that either the inner or outer features of the face can act as sufficient cues for newborns' face recognition (Experiment 1), but the outer part of the face enjoys an advantage over the inner part (Experiment 2). Inversion of the face stimuli disrupted recognition when only the inner portion of the face was shown, but not when the whole face was fully visible or only the outer features were presented (Experiment 3). The results enhance our picture of what information newborns actually process and encode when they discriminate, learn, and recognize faces.     

Who Publishes More Books in U.S. English Departments,Men or Women?

The “gender gap” in the U.S. publication of English language and literature scholarly books has not been fully investigated. In order to investigate gender disparity, we collected, aggregated, and analyzed data on 1633 faculty members who authored or edited 4835 scholarly books at the top 50 U.S. English Ph.D. departments. Despite the fact that more women than men have received Ph.D.s in English since 1987, the top 50 departments are predominantly male, and male faculty members publish more books on a per capita basis. However, who publishes more books in these departments varies: (1) with the department that the faculty member is in (with grater parity in the middle 30 departments); and (2) when the faculty member published their first book, with female faculty who published their first book after 1998 publishing as many books on a per person basis as male faculty. This paper also offers recommendations on how marketing strategies can be used to ameliorate the “gender gap” in this academic field.     

The role of content management systems in publishing firms

This paper investigates the interaction between technological and organizational parameters. Recent studies have been focused on the information and communication impact on organizational parameters, owing to the growing need to acquire and process information. We focus on the impact of the content management system on publishing firms and through the study of ten Italian cases we identify the socio-technical context which favor the adoption of technology as well as the organizational parameters influenced by the technology use.     

科学、技艺、技术:中国农业从物质到知识的穿越

中国农业在中国农政管理系统中是治国之本,该系统兼容地方文化多样性,扎根社会网络,对科学、技艺、技术的知识与实践产生了积极作用。在19世纪之前,几乎没有任何西方国家在促进农业生产和传播农业知识方面有所作为,中国却从宋代开始已经全面着手,政府发挥各级官员、文人学士、地主作者、农民和工匠的综合作用,鼓励官民合作,发展先秦以来的儒家伦理政治、伦理社会秩序和伦理道德民俗,更新了中国农业国家的知识系统与宇宙观。发展这一方向的研究成果,能够增加我们对科学与规律的理解,而它不仅存在于中国,也普遍地存在于人类社会的前现代时期之中。     

Beyond genetics in Mental Rotation Test performance: The power of effort attribution

This study compares the effects on Mental Rotation Test (MRT) performance of instructions that stress the importance of (a) personal effort, and (b) genetically driven ability. A total of 120 high-school students were assigned to three groups, and administered two sub-tests of the MRT. Between the first and second sub-tests, the groups received one of the following instructions: effort (“anyone can succeed in this task by putting in effort”), ability (“performance on the test depends on genetic determinants”), and neutral for control (“this is an important test used in many countries”). We predicted that effort but not ability instructions would affect performance. Results confirmed the prediction and showed that, after controlling for baseline performance, the effort group outperformed the ability and control groups, which did not differ from each other. Discussion focuses on the mechanisms implied in believing ability to be genetically determined or experientially driven.     

Effect of novel consolidants on mechanical and absorption properties of deteriorated wood by insect attack

The influence of chemical treatments based on novel organic products on the consolidation of deteriorated wood by insect attack was evaluated on two hardwoods and one softwood: fir (Abies alba), beech (Fagus sylvatica) and deciduous oak (Quercus sp.). Degraded and intact specimens of the three wood species were impregnated with two different chemical treatments aimed to verify the potential synergic action of the novel products on wood. Then, the specimens were subjected to bending, compression parallel to the grain, impact, hardness and water absorption tests. Untreated specimens of the same botanical species, both degraded and non-degraded, were examined for comparison purposes. The experimental results showed a different effectiveness of the proposed chemical treatments to improve the mechanical and absorption properties of degraded wood. The most effective treatment was the one assuming the concurrent use of the studied novel consolidants. The species more susceptible of the enhancement in mechanical properties were fir and beech. The observed differentiations were most likely caused by the different structure of the botanical species considered, leading to a consequent different product penetration in the wood structure. The dimensional stability in terms of water repellent and antiswelling efficiency, after a three-month immersion in deionized water, was found to improve in all the treated wood specimens. Overall, experimental results showed that the impact of the chemical treatments was higher on degraded samples than on intact ones.