2024

Foundations of Education

Name: Foundations of Education
Code: PED14141L
6 ECTS
Duration: 15 weeks/156 hours
Scientific Area: Education Sciences

Teaching languages: Portuguese
Languages of tutoring support: Portuguese
Regime de Frequência: Presencial

Presentation

This u.c. enables trainees to understand: education as an anthropological project in its personal, social and human dimensions, the relationships between the conceptions of the world and of life and the political organization of education, and the nature, function, and multiple facets of teaching.

Sustainable Development Goals

Learning Goals

This is a curricular unit admittedly ambitious: being one of two possible optional curricular units in the field of educational sciences, in the biology and geology program, it tries to introduce potential students to the mental and cultural universe of Education. For this reason, it seeks to cover a wide range of topics and enable a global vision, which is necessarily superficial, but which is attractive and motivating.
Thus, it is expected that students will be able to:
- Understand education as an anthropological project in its personal, social and human dimensions.
- Understand, in a diachronic perspective, the relationships between the great conceptions of the world and of life and the political organization of education, present in each moment.
- Know and criticize the educational agendas of the main international organizations for the coordination of Education policies, namely UNESCO and the OECD.
- Understand the nature, function and multiple facets of the teaching profession.

Contents

Education as a symbolic construction of the human
2. The Foundations of Education
2.1. Biological foundations
2.2. Psychological foundations
2.3. Anthropological foundations
2.4. Socio-economic foundations
2.5. Philosophical foundations
3. Education and worldviews
4. Education and political agendas; national and international
5. Education as a profession: nature, missions and challenges

Teaching Methods

A motivational strategy will be sought based on the awareness of individual responsibility in building, through self and hetero-education, informal, non-formal or informal means, of a more just and sustainable community. We will use varied methodologies, using expository moments, analysis and discussion of texts of the most diverse nature (from essays to newspaper or magazine articles, from films to reports, etc). To respect individual rhythms and promote student autonomy, b-learning methodologies and strategies will be used, with the contemplation of synchronous and asynchronous work.
The continuous evaluation is carried out based on two main elements: (i) participation in the discussions throughout the sessions (20%), and (ii) elaboration and presentation of small works on aspects of the contents, elaborated according to norms agreed with the students (80%). In the exam regime, students will perform a written exam.

Teaching Staff