Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

Team-Based Learning (TBL) is an active teaching method where students play an active role and learn through dynamic team-based tasks. This method was used by a group of undergraduate students in a  Matter and Energy Balances course, part of the Chemical Civil Engineering Program at the University of Bío Bío in Chile. TBL was executed in order to facilitate teamwork and improve student performance as compared to a conventional lecture-based class. The study was conducted during the last topic unit of the course from 2014-2016, producing results that contrast those attained in 2015-2017. Based on the results, student grades peaked (4.9), achieving the highest final grade in 2016 (4.9) after implementing this method a second time.  Average student grades were between 6.5 and 6.6 from 2014-2016 compared to 6.0 and 4.9 during 2015 and 2017 (based on a grading scale of 1.0 as a minimum and 7.0 as a maximum). The results of a perception questionnaire reveal that the method facilitates teamwork, creating a cooperative work environment where more than 90% of students feeling satisfied with the method.

This bibliographic review explores gender-related issues in a study conducted by the Universidad Santo Tomás (St. Thomas University) entitled: Yo soy tú, tú eres todos (I am you; You are everyone). We are living and moving languages: approaching children at play with a gender perspective (Jiménez, 2018). The study, which was organized within a community. A gender focus was used to critically reflect on the development of pedagogies to foster self-knowledge of subjectivity and discussion in order to value and respect life from childhood. The methodology includes exploration of recent sources; data searches and systematization were commensurate with the project endpoint: characterization of the child population and its gender subjectivity; identifying gender issues through stories and important life events, and, propose a childlike, didactic strategy. Based on the results, we need to continue to work on gender perspectives and deepen recurrent gender violence to favorably impact inclusion, justice and gender equality.

The objective of this study is to discover the dominant learning styles among higher level Math students in the Electrical Engineering Program at the University of Costa Rica during 2018-19. Knowledge of the different dominant learning styles is useful to enhance teaching processes among this population group and effectively target efforts to attain significant learning. The study was executed using the following procedure: elaboration of state of the art on learning styles, especially higher education to learn its scope and methodology. The convenient and viable Felder -Silverman Learning Style Model was also used to classify a sample of 122 students based on their predominant learning style. Afterwards, the data was processed and analyzed through a grouping technique to determine the dominant learning style. According to Felder-Silverman, the dominant learning style in this student population is visualizing (55.7% of the population) and sensing/intuitive (45.9% of the population), which indicate preference towards learning based on data and established procedures using tangible and visual material.

Latin American academic literature on Media Literacy was examined to determine the importance of establishing Media Education initiatives in this region. After conducting a broad literature review, it was determined that the main discussion points in the subcontinent revolve around media literacy aimed at understanding content and language, followed by the use of technology and examination of institutional conditions that are conducive, or not, to media literacy. In most Latin American countries, the emergence of Media Literacy has been the result of organizational initiatives and scattered academic interest in this topic with the goal of provoking thought about experiences resulting from academic or political educational agendas of interest to academic authorities.

n the frame of the Program Perfiles, Dinámicas y Desafíos de la Educación Costarricense, from the Centro de Investigación y Docencia en Educación (CIDE), of the National University of Costa Rica, this article aims to open a space of national dialog and reflection about the standardized tests of the national baccalaureat (pruebas nacionales de bachillerato or PNB) for secondary education in Costa Rica, and the performance of secondary schools in border zones. Its specific goal is to analyze the results of these national tests of secondary education in Costa Rica as instruments to certify knowledge in the border zones of the country, with the intention to visualize advancements in education and their social repercussions. The analysis is based on the results of the PNB reported to the Education Ministry by the eight regional education authorities located in border zones from the north and south of the country, and their relation with the Social Development Index (Índice de Desarrollo Social or IDS) of the cantons under these authorities jurisdiction. The statistical data were worked in two dimensions, one related to the PNB results in terms of general promotion, and average grades; and the second one related to the IDS for 2013. The data analysis process let us show some transcendental conclusions regarding equity, educative inclusion, and social development conditions to take into consideration when interpreting PNB results in the country.

This research aims to analyze the state of the art in the country of the knowledge of dangers of online social networks and how to protect minors through good cybersecurity practices.Through a bibliographic review, different topics related to the management of social networks and dangers young people in Costa Rica are exposed to. Security and privacy terms are evaluated, as well as the role of parents, and some elements of Cybersecurity of the most popular Social Networks among underage people. Among the most important findings, it was determined that the greatest dangers of social networks for minors are harassment, cyberbullying, grooming, sexting and addiction, which, without an adequate education in Cybersecurity, make children vulnerable. The most popular social networks online among children and adolescents are Facebook, Instragram, Whatsapp, and SnapChat, and each one is governed by a series of conditions; these media also offer a series of tools to ensure privacy and data security, but they must be configured and this is basically what we know as Cybersecurity. Educating children in cybersecurity is a new challenge for parents: they must know and be prepared to teach their children on how to protect themselves from these new dangers.

This article analyses whether the advance of university scientific knowledge on Francoism is reflected in the theme dedicated to this period in three 4th ESO school textbooks produced for Andalusia. The selection of the sample was made following the criteria of the editorial's ideology, focusing on three conservative and liberal textbooks. A critical analysis of the content of each of them is carried out and the scientific knowledge they present is reflected upon. The results show the need to undertake a conceptual revision of the information contained in the texts and their adaptation to the advances in scientific knowledge on Francoism at university level.

This study aims to carry out a review of the teacher training programmes carried out in the 50 Spanish public universities, by means of a documentary analysis of sources. The main objective is to know the characteristics of the different training programs developed, as well as their strengths and weaknesses, in order to provide an overview of the situation in this area at the Spanish level. The results obtained, analyzed from a system of "ad hoc" categories, point to the existence of three main types of programmes: novice programmes, specific courses and university teaching programmes or qualifications. In turn, each of the programmes is determined by its duration, target groups and training strategies. The most relevant conclusions include the existence of specific short courses on competencies or isolated teaching axes on novice programs or training programs in university teaching, which are developed to a lesser extent and not in all universities. This last result suggests the need to develop at least one long-term training programme in each university, which focuses its training strategies on reflection and improvement of classroom practice and which allows both new and experienced teachers to improve teaching.

In this paper, results of static and dynamic nonlinear analyses of 6- and 9-stories regular buildings structured with eccentrically braced ductile steel frames are discussed. The structures were analyzed through detailed models in OpenSees. The results underlined that mid-rise eccentrically braced structures designed in compliance with capacity design principles can develop undesired behavior, characterized by a damage concentration. In order to improve the knowledge acquired, parameters and inelastic capacities of the structural system were carefully assessed.

EXPLANATORY NOTEThe relations between mediatization processes and the functioning of political practices are at the center of the concerns of academic research in different geo-academical contexts, as can be seen in the reflections developed by researchers and university professors from differentcountries: Brazil (Antônio Albino Canelas Rubim, José Luiz Aidar Prado, Maria Helena Weber), Venezuela (Antonio Pasquali), Colombia (Beatriz Quiñonez Cely), Portugal (Helder Prior) and Bolivia (Víctor Quelca). The considerations of these thinkers, presented in the dossier,are published here in the form of interviews.The authors point out several issues, such as the relationship between intellectuals and the media, by recollecting that there can be no intellectuals if there are no media predisposed to promote the public debate on the main concerns democracy undergoes. They analyze communicational strategies by highlighting the evidence of continuities between practices developed by ideologically different governments around symbolic ways of seeing the world. They also denounce the fact that the informational galaxy is today being pathologically contaminated, on a large scale, by the manipulation of the informational processes, leavingreceivers without credible referents. They consider that communicational studies resent a greater connection with social movements and communication policies, like the fact that we live a “conservative wave”, does not mean that the population becomes more conservative.They reflect on the functioning of political discourses by emphasizing that they circulate relying on cognitive dimensions, but also resorting to the order of the sensitive, by appealing to feelings and emotions. They attribute to television and to marketing determinism strong responsibilities concerning the end of democracy when they point out that politics has submitted itself to the polls since the future depends on opinion. They also reflect on voter empowerment, which depends not only on other factors already described but on the dynamics organized on social networks as well as on the articulations of the “bubbles” in which the individuals are insulated.