The history of science is an important component to acquire for achieving scientific literacy. In this study, a collaborative activity was applied in which the students were presented with the historical context in which Robert Hooke lived and developed the first register of the microscopic world. Furthermore, the students explored the environment…

This paper reports a study on politeness strategies of Brazilian Portuguese speakers and American English speakers regarding their responses to compliments. The aim of this research is to gain an insight into the politeness characteristics of Brazilian Portuguese speakers by analyzing how Brazilian students react when receiving compliments. It…

The purpose of this study is to understand in an exploratory way pupils' perception of science and the image of scientists at primary and secondary school levels. Data was collected by means of a survey questionnaire and a drawing representing pupils' depiction what scientists do during their working hours. A questionnaire anchored on a Likert…

Seeking a historical-philosophical approach to science teaching, narrative texts have been used as pedagogical tools to improve the learning experience of students. A review of the literature of different types of narrative texts and their different rates of effectiveness in science education is presented. This study was developed using the…

The objective of this study is to demonstrate that the criteria of didactical suitability, proposed by the theoretical framework known as the Onto-Semiotic Approach (OSA) of mathematical knowledge and instruction, are powerful tools for organizing the reflection and assessment of instruction processes carried out by mathematics teachers. To this…

This paper reports on how teachers, from different cities in Brazil, used groups on Facebook and how communication between teachers and students was affected by using such groups. This study is framed under the Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) perspective, and is conceived from a methodological background that invites participants to…

In most Intelligent Tutoring Systems, the help messages (hints) are not very clear for students as they are only presented textually and have little connection with the task elements. This can lead to students' undesired behaviors, like gaming the system, associated with low performance. In this paper, the authors aim at evaluating if the gestures…

The use of technological resources has the potential to make viable new and less traditional methodologies of teaching that take into account student differences. Blended learning can be a way to rethink classes so that students have more freedom in their processes of learning. The goal of this article is to understand a blended learning…

This qualitative study investigates underprivileged students' perceptions of their future, their health, and the relevance of a career counseling process. Interviews regarding career guidance were conducted during a workshop with nine eleventh-grade students from a public high school in Brazil's capital. The data were analyzed according to…

There are primarily two discourses on slang: one is based on the Linguistic Purism View (slang is seen as an ugly, poor and/or dirty vocabulary); and on the other hand, the Socio-historical-cognitive view understands slang as a rich component of language (BARRA, 2007; MATTIELLO, 2005; ZARBALIYEVA, 2012). Taking this into consideration, this…

Learning a foreign language is, among other factors, based on the perception of one's own development and on undertaking strategies for greater communicative competence, which are founded in autonomous procedures that span the necessity for greater responsibility. As learning a language demands constant study, even after the school period--when…

In every country, school is considered an essential factor in the development of children, citizens, and the country as a whole. In developing countries such as Brazil, however, the number of school dropouts is very high. In developed countries such as the United States, there is an urgent need for pedagogical improvements. Participants were…

This study focuses on the implementation of selective waste collection in a school located on the outskirts of the city of Rio de Janeiro. The participants consisted mainly of 64 students taking an Environmental Control technical course during 2007 and 2008. By addressing selective waste collection, the pedagogical proposal aimed at: a) enabling…