This paper presents the results of a research project entitled Teaching Exercises in Multicultural Contexts: Lessons to Training in Intercultural Teaching Skills, which was conducted during 2011-2012 by the Department of Teaching Research and Studies from the Costa Rican Ministry of Public Education (Escalante, Fernández and Gaete, 2012), in order to explore cultural diversity in classrooms and educational institutions in Costa Rica. This multicultural phenomenon has forced authorities to pay special attention to the educational services provided, particularly in elementary. In addition, it has sparked a discussion regarding the teachers’ conceptual and pedagogical void and a gap in their teaching skills to deal with student populations of different origins. Similarly, it leads to a reflection about the basic national educational curriculum. The research was conducted in 12 elementary schools from different educational districts, which have a high cultural diversity among students. Using qualitative research techniques, the opinions of principals, teachers and students regarding this topic are explored. The most important conclusion reached in this study is the absence of an intercultural pedagogy in the country’s classrooms and the need to prepare teachers in this respect.

The School of Pharmacy is currently facing a problem due to little or no communication among students of the same class or same academic level. Collaborative learning is a methodological strategy that goes beyond just working in groups. Small groups are formed and, after receiving instructions from the professor, group members exchange knowledge and work on an assignment until every person in the group has understood and completed the task, thus learning through collaboration. The main elements of this learning technique include: intentional design through the use of activities prepared by the teacher, collaboration through the active commitment of all the members of the work team, and significant learning through the increase of individual and collective in-depth knowledge on a given topic. Due to the foregoing, this learning experience was conducted during three sessions of the Applied Pharmaceutical Calculations Laboratory (FA-2023) during the second semester of 2012. During these sessions, students were paired and assigned specific tasks that had to be completed before, during and after each lab session. In order to determine the result of the strategy used, the grades obtained by all the groups (24 students) in quizzes and reports during those sessions were compared against the grades obtained in both items during the sessions where no collaborative learning approach was used. In addition, a survey in the form of a questionnaire was used to know the students’ opinion regarding this methodological strategy. Data was examined using a sociodemographic analysis for age and gender, and a descriptive analysis with frequency distribution for the rest of the items in the questionnaire. Results obtained show an enriching experience from the perspective of both the professor and the students. Consequently, the implementation of this strategy is necessary and advisable for the education processes of all learning levels in Costa Rica.

This paper is aimed at proposing an alternative for cognitive enhancement in the elderly, based on contributions and evidence presented by experts in the field. Scientific positions for and against the use of brain training are analyzed. The viability of this proposal is argued based on empirical evidence presented by theorists and researchers in the field of neuroscience, supported by modern brain scanning technologies. It is concluded that, despite the natural vulnerability during aging, this proposal makes cognitive improvement possible as alternative brain training.

This paper constitutes a literature review that evidences that competency acquisition in higher education has boomed in the XXI century and that one of the competencies developed is research. The objective of this paper is to prepare a theoretical systematization of the years 1999-2013 using the existing research projects regarding the acquisition and development of research competence in higher education, based on its concept and the relationships between each of its components and dimensions. The research methods used were historical-logical and analytic-synthetic and the technique used was the document analysis of 40 papers by authors from Europe, Asia and the Americas. The paper presents a pedagogical analysis of the results obtained, identifies strengths and weaknesses, and proposes a number of pedagogical considerations to be included in the acquisition and development of this competence. The main result obtained is that neither a professional nor a technological component has been fully integrated to the research competence structure.

This paper seeks to problematize some changes currently imposed on education, as part of the discussions on the deconstruction of colonized education versus a type of education denominated nurturing. From the perspective of the dialogue of knowledge and interculturality, the term nurturing highlights the mutual care and creation between human beings and uses a type of education that is developed in multiple spaces, as an expansion of knowledge conceived in the daily, social, historical and personal experience of the communities. From this premise, this paper has been woven using the threads of discourse, highlighting the words of Juan, a farmer in central Chile, since, from a Foucauldian proposition, strength and meaning of discourse are given by the positions of power; therefore, the authors take the challenge of putting into circulation the thought of a man immersed in the everyday world of the biotics.

This paper intends to recover a pedagogic vision in life, as an experience and a process that dignifies joy, love, ecology, leisure, freedom and hope, as options that enable routes for a pedagogic project that generates health. The theoretical position is assumed as a holistic paradigm to conclude that the planetary crisis, that generates serious and persistent health problems at personal, social, and worldwide levels, can be modified using a healthy pedagogy which constitutes a creative, loving and hopeful challenge for the cohabitation of diverse life forms. The term “Healthy Pedagogy” rises from the need to establish a dialogical relationship between pedagogy and health, based on renewed visions that lead to the rising of a new node. Both the right to health and the right to education are usually understood as independent from each other. However, the intersection between them can signify a great challenge and an important revelation.

As part of a reflection process by the academic staff of the Basic Education Division (DEB) on the conceptualization and implementation of the praxis processes in the DEB student community, the research project entitled “Professional Praxis of Practice Teachers and Senior Teachers” was created in 2013. The main objective of this project is to provide spaces to reflect and/or take action on the practice teaching of the participants involved in the DEB academic programs through action-research processes aimed at strengthening pedagogical praxis. In addition, results obtained are shared by the academic team in order to know the reflections made by the students of the four DEB academic programs during their supervised practice teaching, and to identify the most significant aspects experienced during such practice teaching. A teaching unit was designed to collect and reflect on aspects regarding their practicum experiences in elementary schools. Finally, thanks to the project there was consistency between the theory students receive in classes and the practical-pedagogical axis in the curricula of the DEB academic programs, based on the practice teaching conducted by the student community.

This paper is the result of the teaching research project ascribed to the School of Computer Sciences from Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica (UNA), entitled “Facebook as a Teaching and Learning Tool for the Course EIF-203 Discrete Structures for Computer Sciences through the Use of Interactive Books”. The overall objective of the project was to analyze the Facebook social network as a teaching and learning environment from a technical and pedagogical point of view. A number of teaching strategies are presented in this paper, which were created to complement the teaching of the EIF -203 course, using the Facebook and Twitter social networks as an educational platform. Shared strategies constitute an intensive search for new methodologies to enhance the teaching and ideally the learning processes in the EIF -203 course, which is part of the curriculum of the Computer Engineering Program at UNA. These strategies were implemented in a group of 31 students from the Alajuela Campus during the first semester of 2013. This permitted the evaluation of the teaching strategies developed using a quantitative methodology. The instrument used (a questionnaire) was validated by a “Cronbach’s Alpha” reliability test using a sample of 65 participants. The results are part of the analysis presented in this paper.

Math has become an obstacle to achieve educational goals for a large number of students; thus it has transcended the academic world and has become a cognitive and emotional impairment. What students feel, perceive, believe, and how they act directly influences this. In addition, what teachers feel and perceive, their expectations, beliefs and attitudes towards the discipline also play an important role in how they teach and in the affective dimension of their students. Based on theoretical aspects from various authors, this paper is aimed at addressing some elements regarding the affective dimension, and at showing elements pertaining to teachers and students, and their relationship with math learning and teaching. It was concluded that the role of the affective dimension in math learning must be addressed by math educators in order to understand the process from the perspective of the actors associated with it, both students and teachers, as well as to achieve a change in the discipline by improving the beliefs and attitudes of students and teachers.

It is vital that the school system currently promotes an equal distribution of educational opportunities between all social sectors and encourages alumni to have the opportunity to work in positions where they can take full advantage of the education they received. Therefore, the objective of this study was to diagnose the school opportunities that high school alumni have regarding their academic education and the relationship with their professional and job performance. The research was exploratory since it determined school opportunities for alumni as well as descriptive since it identified means for work insertion, continuity in higher education, and the degree of satisfaction of the educational services received. The design was cross-sectional because data was collected at one specific point in time, using a 44-item questionnaire applied to 65 alumni (36 male and 29 female). Results showed that the jobs they have are similar to those of their parents: 36.9% employees and 13.8% laborers. Only 41.5% were able to continue with higher education in public institutions, which reflects that poor students are disadvantaged due to their socio-economic and cultural background.

This paper studies the process experienced by graduate students and the academic staff in the Licentiate level [university degree between the Bachelor’s and the Master’s] during the execution of their final graduation projects in the Basic Education Division. The need to evaluate the process results from a continuing reflection by the Division’s Administration. In order to understand the information obtained from the database, data was grouped by academic programs with the purpose of analyzing their individual processes. Using the Pearson´s chi-square test, results show that there are significant differences (p≤ 0.05) between final graduation projects for the different programs. Due to these results, it is necessary to identify the factors that differentiate the programs and that promote the successful conclusion of the final graduation project.

This article reports the results of a research project financed by the Chilean Ministry of Education (FONIDE No. 310894) and the Center for Advanced Research in Education (AEIC) (FONDAP No. 11-2009). The aim of this research project was to investigate the students’ perception regarding civics education, which, according to school curricula, should be taught in school, in order to detect the problems and challenges resulting from those perceptions, which will be faced by history and geography teachers in schools. The methodology used was qualitative and phenomenological. Samples were selected using an intentional sampling method and included male and female eighth graders from twelve schools from different administrative units in the Concepción district in Chile. Information was obtained using a thorough semi structured interview and analyzed using the Atlas.ti Software. Results were not very promising since, despite the Ministry’s recent efforts, which included changes made during the last decade to civics education, students do not have an adequate notion of what civics education is or what it is for. Neither do they consider these classes a space that helps them in this respect.

This paper reflects on empirical elements derived from the work by Moreno, Torres and Jiménez (2014) entitled The Discourse of Dissertation Committee Members as a Means to Train Graduate Researchers, which is based on a research project whose object of study is the content and orientation of the messages received by doctoral education students from professors who made critical readings of their dissertation progress. This level of education was selected because practically all doctoral programs in Mexico are research oriented. Therefore, it is assumed that PhD students are trained to do research in a specific field of knowledge. Data, which was obtained from 101 reports written by 9 dissertation committee members for 60 students in two doctoral programs in education in Mexico, points out important matters that students can learn regarding how to conduct educational research and how to report it in a written text. These aspects are discussed in this paper in three areas of content, including parts of the discourse of the committee members.

Costa Rican rural settings include indigenous populations and groups in scattered areas that require considering issues such as language and culture, among others, to achieve an appropriate curriculum development. The National Institute of Statistics and Census (INEC) defines rurality based on the existence or lack of public services such as roads, communication, utilities, formation of the household, and participation in agricultural activities, among others. This research seeks to interpret the perceptions and beliefs of rural high school principals in Costa Rica, regarding technical and administrative conditions in compliance with the objectives for which the institutions were created. This is a longitudinal qualitative study, since data was taken from two workshops, one in 2010 with 49 rural high school coordinators and another one in 2012 with 205 participants including principals and teaching staff. Information was analyzed using an open-question questionnaire and a Venn diagram. Seventeen rural high schools were visited, and students, teachers, and parents from 45 rural high schools were interviewed during 2011 and 2012. It is concluded that there is still no real integration between the socio productive, personal and social areas with the academic area; therefore, teachers in the academic area should be trained in vocational aspects such as entrepreneurship, cooperativism, business management, as well as counsoling, physical education, arts, and music to trully meet the objectives for which rural high schools were created.

This article is derived from a research study and is aimed at contributing to the study of university students’ intentions to use e-learning by utilizing the Technology Acceptance Model. The methodology used is based on an exploratory quantitative transversal research and the methodological instrument is a self-administered questionnaire applied to 100 active students in the Technology Management Program from “Instituto Tecnológico Metropolitano” at Medellín. For the data analysis, the levels of association were quantified between the constructs of the Technology Acceptance Model using Cramer’s V coefficient, which were examined based on the typologies of surveyed students. Among the main findings, the explanatory capacity of the Technology Acceptance Model was verified by finding associations between perceived usefulness, ease of use, and student’s attitude and intention to use e-learning. It is concluded that surveyed students have greater preference for a classroom study with academic support on virtual learning tools and little intention to enroll in a virtual undergraduate program. More training and support in the use of e-learning tools is recommended to complement the educational processes of the Technology Management Program.

The following paper addresses, in an essay format, the topic of the emergence of a culture that includes the redeeming recreation of important elements such as freedom and responsibility from a practical point of view, as a collective life project, consistent with humanitarian ideals and values. This is an analytical paper based on questions pertaining to categories and assumptions such as leisure time, work, and capitalism, among others. The objective of this analysis is the deconstruction of myths that, in the light of the theory and the political philosophies resulting from the industrial revolution, subsume recreation as an activity. Myths do not only do this but limit recreation to time specificity, thwarting the possibility of happiness and the liberation of consciousness from a dehumanizing and dehumanized ideology.

This paper is the result of a research project aimed at constructing and validating moral dilemmas for students of rural contexts. In the first phase the teacher compiled moral situations of interest to her students. During the second phase, the researchers designed dilemmas responding to predetermined criteria, and in the third phase the teacher presented 9 dilemmas to her class. The group analyzed the information in videos, students’ posters and worksheets, the teacher’s daily activity report, and the researchers’ observation log. Fifteen moral dilemmas resulted at the end, from which nine were put into practice, and of those six were validated. The remaining three dilemmas that were not validated could be polished thanks to the learning experience gained by the research team in relation to creating dilemmas, the students’ performance at facing dilemmas and the teacher´s role in the development of dilemmas in class. This opens a new panorama full of different research problems related to moral dilemmas.