vol. 18 núm. 33 (2016)

Desde la Editorial continuamos planteándonos retos que fortalezcan cada día más la labor científica y académica de la Universidad y del país. Por ello, estamos comprometidos con la autoevaluación permanente y con la gestión pertinente de los procesos editoriales de la revista.

Purpose:  This  essay  reflects  on  the  purposes  of  education  today,  on  the  role  of  teacher and student, and on the importance of the articulation between pedagogy and society. Themes: concepts of education, society, pedagogy, authority and leadership  that  must  be  present  in  the  educational  act  are  considered.  Development:  from  some  passages  of  Miguel  de  Unamuno’s  novel: Amor  y  Pedagogía  (Love  and  Pedagogy)  and  using  the  ideas  of  Vigotski,  Franco  Serrano,  Bazán,  among others, as reference points, some ideas on the challenges of current education are presented. Conclusions: this reflection serves to define the roles assumed by teachers and students as beings immersed in a demanding society that poses new challenges.

Introduction: In this paper, we present an analysis of the teacher-student interaction patterns in efl classes found at a Colombian private university. Methodology: This analysis was made during a qualitative case study in which 36 class observations were conducted. Data were coded and further categorized with the help of Nvivo10 software. Findings: Teacher-student interaction was the most common type of classroom exchange. A three-turn sequence, commonly referred to as irf, was chief among those interactions. In an irf exchange the teacher (I)nitiates the interaction, the student (R)esponds and the teacher provides (F)eedback. The third turn in irf exchanges was scarcely used to follow-up on students’ responses. Furthermore, we present the implications of using the third turn for both feedback and follow-up. Conclusions: Given the analysis made, the authors conclude that teachers should use the third turn for follow-up if the goal is to promote genuine linguistic interaction and engage students in meaningful communication.

Introduction: this article presents a linguistic and pragmatic-social analysis of the treatment formulas used in the Colombian Senate.   Methodology: a qualitative methodology of exploratory approach was applied.   Results: the analysis began with a contextualization of the speech act in political debates, followed by an analysis of the lexical variable from its semantic meaning, emphasizing social variables and discursive strategies, taking in account the approaches made by: Silva, García, Van Dijk, Areiza, Cisneros and Tabares.    Conclusions: in terms of morphology, features related to word creation processes were detailed.

Introduction: the purpose of this article is to describe gamification as a new teaching-learning methodology, which allows students to meet specific learning objectives and develop skills.   Methodology: a qualitative and quantitative analysis was carried out, observing two groups, one which received traditional class methodology whilst the other received a gamification methodology for the same subject. Observation was complemented by a numerical analysis of their academic performance.   Results: this study presents a comparison between the gamification and the traditional class methodology to know their effects on students’ motivation.   Conclusions: it is concluded that gamification positively affects the learning process since it stimulates motivation in students, particularly due to the positive interaction between teacher and students.

Introduction: the need to move from a teaching to a learning perspective makes the reflection appear in university classrooms from the education requirements for the twenty-first century, which calls for didactic strategies with open, flexible and interdisciplinary processes. From a descriptive research with a work unit of 1000 undergraduate students from three universities of Pereira, Colombia, a random probability probabilistic sample of 100 students of both sexes (30 from UniCatólica, 30 from UniAndina and 40 from Uni Libre), to whom a Likert questionnaire was applied, was carried out to measure teaching from three specific functions: 1) experimentation and collaborative work; 2) the correct teacher’s expression and gesture, and motivation to the student; 3) good interpersonal relationships and control of student learning. Each function was evaluated with ten indicators.   Results: it was found that in the private universities of Pereira in undergraduate programs, the teaching-learning offered is an effective, dynamic and proactive process from the student’s perspective and from the analysis done to the didactic methodologies and strategies applied by teachers.   Conclusions: in the universities of Pereira, in undergraduate programs, teaching-learning is offered based on experimentation and group collaborative work; From correct teachers’ expression and gesticulation as well as motivation of the student, from good interpersonal relations and control of the student’s learning. In the same way, it became evident that in these institutions, teaching-learning is an effective, dynamic and proactive process from the student’s perspective.

Purpose: To increase awareness of the special importance of profiling research. Topics: indexed journals, types of reviews and research profiles. Development: Selecting a research topic could be a hard task for young researchers or experienced researchers exploring different subjects. As ESL research works have been gradually growing during the last decades, trying to have a general view of all research done on its diverse related topics is a utopian aim. Considerable efforts like handbooks, literature reviews and states of the art have been made in order to make visible and organize different types of literature texts and scientific publications by adopting any selection criteria. However, such works, although very valuable, serve very specific purposes so that they cannot give a general picture of the different published research studies on an academic arena. Research profiles can meet such a need, of course, through inclusion criteria such as time frames or geographical contexts. Also, they help research works to be known and categorized according to any parameters so that research lines can be traced and regional or national bodies or research can be acknowledged. Besides, they are the starting point of more systematic reviews and complex tasks. Conclusions: Research profiles serve different purposes such as helping researchers select research topics, track and acknowledge research works, and create research lines and set research agendas in a country.

Purpose: The main objective of the philosophy of science and the architectural process of paradigms is the rational construction of a set of paradigms that correspond to the concerns of philosophy.   Description: That which concerns the philosophy of science treatise, allows to infer that philosophy and science deal with knowledge; with how scientific and knowledge theories are developed, evaluated and changed; with whether science is capable of revealing the truth of hidden entities and the processes of nature, that is, if there is concordance between intellection and reality that allows processes of learning and reflection.   Point of view: between philosophy and science there is a process of knowledge in which three elements are involved: a subject, an object and the relationship established between the two.   Conclusions: the importance of the philosophy of science in the researches of diverse fields in the present time is confirmed. The relationship between philosophy and science is enhanced, taking into account the case of some philosophers and scientists who have achieved this for the philosophical and scientific formation of human beings.

Introduction: One of the current demands of Higher Education, both public and private, is quality. This concept is closely linked with social relevance, which refers to the role that Higher Education plays in society and what society expects from it. In this sense, a university system’s quality is the product of several factors and processes, amongst which the teacher appears as a subject of study, so as to analyze his perception about the social relevance of the institution.   Methodology: From a descriptive research approach, we analyze the perception of 121 teachers from two Higher Education institutions in northwest Mexico, one public and one private. Surveys regarding the quality of the functions of the institution in which they work were carried out. These had categories proposed by De la Orden, Muñoz, López, Barberá and Ndabishibije, under the premise that Institutional quality should assess the coherence between the needs of society and those of the institution.    Results: In both institutions teachers evaluate positively the relevance of the institution. Similarly, variability of results is observed between the two institutions.   Conclusion: The research shows that the lack of diffusion or information about the different functions that the University fulfills influences the way in which teachers perceive these functions.