Teaching Crossroads: 13th and 14th IPB Erasmus Weeks

• Autor(a) principal: Silva, Elisabete Mendes (Ed.)
• Data de Publicação: 2018
• Outros Autores: Pais, Clarisse (Ed.), Pais, Luís S. (Ed.)
• Tipo de documento: Livro
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10198/16790

The Polytechnic Institute of Bragança (IPB) has been organising its Erasmus Week since 2004. It is held yearly in May, normally during the second week of May. The Erasmus week’s main purposes are three-fold. First, the IPB aims at enforcing closer, more dynamic and more efficient institutional relations amongst the European Higher Education Institutions. Lectures are then organised and introduced in both undergraduate and master classes in accordance with the area of interest. Meetings with directors of the 5 IPB schools and Erasmus coordinators are also scheduled. The second and third goals, which naturally derive from the first, are to facilitate familiarity with the IPB campus, its schools and with the cities of Bragança and Mirandela, where the IPB schools are settled, and with the surrounding area, namely the Montesinho Natural Park and the Alto Douro Wine Region (UNESCO World Heritage). This information can be found on the IPB International Relations Office website. Overall, all these three goals lie behind what is considered an umbrella goal which is to promote the IPB in its numerous valences and strengthen the mobility ties with the different European Higher Institutions which have established cooperation agreements with the IPB. This has revealed fruitful and far-reaching as more than 20 partner countries visit us every year. If one takes into account the two last editions’ numbers, Poland is the country with a higher percentage of participants (37.1% and 29%), followed by Spain (11.4% and 15.9%), France, Romania and Czech Republic1. Regarding the lectures delivered during this week, teachers show a high level of satisfaction and find it rather rewarding according to the evaluation results obtained every year. One of the most visible results of these lectures is the publication of Teaching Crossroads. It started being published aiming ultimately at the dissemination of the research work that was presented at the IPB. We then extended it to all activities related to Teachers Erasmus+ mobility and international projects. The idea was not only to disseminate studies from other European researchers but also to give to the IPB teaching staff the opportunity to publish their research work and what they presented during their mobility. So far, the adhesion to this project has been rather steady and compliant with the publication’s main goal. In hindsight, this project, which started in 2011, continues to persevere in its academic path, making thus available to students and teachers the most valuable research studies and relevant data in regard to a myriad of study areas which underlie the spirit of Higher Education, multifaceted, multilayered and plural. In Higher Education we hope never to be at a crossroads, but we dare to constantly thrive when faced with obstacles and embrace the challenges of knowledge. All areas of study are important and meaningful and must be continually promoted. This has been the leading motto of Teaching Crossroads since its very beginning. This would have never been possible without the valuable help of regular contributors to whom we are very grateful, from the authors, the reviewers, the designer to the IPB Image Services. A thanking note must also go to the IPB which has embraced this project by agreeing to publish it. As a result of the close cooperation work with the researchers who submitted their proposals to blind review, we selected five texts from diverse areas but nonetheless complementary. As such, this year, areas of study vary from comparative literature, education, social education and sociology, finance to business and entrepreneurship. A brief summary of each is presented next. María Antonia Mezquita Fernández, whose research has been focusing on the modern subject of ecocriticism bearing in mind the new approach to the close relationship between environmental issues and literature, a concern that always permeated literature, discusses the ecocritical identity in the light of literary figures and their poetical messages regarding nature. By highlighting and comparing two British poets, William Wordsworth and Dylan Thomas, and a Spanish poet, Claudio Rodríguez, the author introduces an ecocritical stance to the analysis of the poems under discussion. Sharing the common ground of nature, the poems are worth reading due to the powerful messages they convey, not only bearing in mind the period when they were written but because the topics explored resonate with the environmental defenders’ main principles. What the author brings to the fore of discussion is a thought-provocative, challenging and relevant essay which found in literature its main driving force to call the attention to the importance of the defence of nature in a time where environmental issues, such as global warming and the melting of glaciers, are at the centre of the world’s political agenda, despite the constant scepticism that still persists to endure. Beata Sufa & Anna Szkolak-Stępień delve into the idea of creativity fostered within the teaching context, by both teachers and students. In their article entitled “Creative Teacher-Creative Pupil – a Study Report”, the authors argue that, having in mind all the technological advances and (advanced) use of learning technology, the new conditions of school and learning context require new challenges to the way the teaching-learning process is dealt with. The teacher’s creative attitude will thus become paramount for children’s development of creativity which will help them to improve communication skills. Kazimiera Król studies the phenomenon of begging in Poland, analyzing the spatial and social framework of such reality which results from many factors and underlies consequences to the places chosen for begging and to the beggars themselves. The author puts forth an empirical study bearing in mind the age, gender, civil status and nationality of mendicants, presenting thus in-depth data which allow her to reach interesting and relevant conclusions regarding the whole phenomenon of begging in nowadays Poland. Eliza Komierzyńska-Orlińska sheds some light on a common unknown part of the financial system to the majority of people, which is the security of the banking system. When one deposits or withdraws money one is never aware of (or simply does not care about) how our money is held safe or how the banks protect their assets. The article “Security of the Banking System in Poland. Fundamental Assumptions” deals precisely with security issues within the Polish banking system highlighting the crucial role of the central bank in the whole process of surveillance and regulation. Legal issues are therefore discussed. By using simple and straightforward language, the author is able to reach a non-specialist audience who will become more informed about this issue in a rather clear way. Erik Kubička focuses on organizational culture explaining how well-succeeded, renowned, top companies in the technology sector foster effectiveness in the work environment. In this regard, the author describes several technological companies, such as Google, Apple and IBM, just to name a few. Innovation, informal leadership, less red tape and closer contact with the workers are features that are common to all these companies which represent the key to their success.