Wednesday, 12th November 2008 - School Day (W17)

Today was supposedly the due date of the questionnaires I sent to the individuals mentioned in the entries below. Nonetheless, due to several technical difficulties involving the compatibility of the document, this was not possible. Naturally, this fact is detrimental to the time limit of my project, nevertheless, further investigation will be done concerning this issue. Hitherto, the time management of this questionnaire is undetermined.

Despite the fact that the results of the questionnaire were not received, I have completed a document incorporating the results formulation to be completed, in a Microsoft Excel file.

I will keep you posted on further development of the product and project.

Sunday, 9th November 2008 - Weekend

As I stated in the previous entry, I have completed a questionnaire (in Portuguese) for the teachers and representatives of the Portuguese Ministery of Education (or individuals with teaching experience). Yesterday, however, I was not able to send this questionnaire to all of the individuals that I so wished. Thus, today, with the aid of my mother's agenda, I gathered the contacts of all of the individuals that I wished to contact, and sent them the questionnaire. The date I set for the returning of the completed questionnaire was on Wednesday, 12th of November.

Nevertheless having completed this phase of my personal project, I am sorry to say that I am extremely behind in this process, and am encountering tremendous difficulties in establishing a compromise between subject work and the personal project. In the following two weeks (in which I must complete the entire project), I believe that I must dedicate more time and effort towards the personal project, and unfortunately must somewhat disregard some of the other assignments that have been designated to me. My involvement in the IMUN (Iberian Model United Nations) this year, although very profitable in terms of experience and public speaking (as well as in the awarness of world issues), is also retrieving a lot of my work time, which I once again must compromise with the personal project.

My aim is that I complete the product of the personal project in the following two weeks, and complete the actual project in the last week previous to the due date.

Tomorrow I am planning to meet with my supervisor, in order to plan these issues and come to a consensus of what is to be achieved in this limited time period.

Saturday, 8th November 2008 - Weekend (W16)

Today I retrieved the various factors to be looked at previously designated with my supervisor:

Approaches to Learning:

• Organization
• Committement
• Individual preparation

Cultural Influences:

• Parental influences
• Response to success/ failure
• High expectations
• Socioeconomic factors

I utilized these points in order to produce a questionnaire that would be handed out to various individuals involved in education in Portugal (as assigned in the previous entry), by looking at the previous factors. With this information, and considering the information collected in the OECD academic results profile, I produced a series of questions (both multiple choice and full responses) to be answered by these people in a 30 minute time period. The following exert is a section of the produced questionnaire:

1. Que nível de desempenho académico é que atribui à maioria dos alunos da faixa etária com que está/ esteve envolvido?

1) Ajustado às expectativas para o respectivo ano
2) Avançado
3) Abaixo das expectativas

Na sua opinião, quais as principais razões que explicam a sua resposta esta pergunta? ____________________________________


2. Como avalia o grau de dispersão do desempenho académico desses alunos?

1) Grande variação no desempenho
2) Desempenho muito homogéneo
3) Distribuição normal do desempenho (muito alunos com desempenho médio, e um número equivalente de alunos muito bons e muito maus)
4) Outra dispersão

Na sua opinião, quais as principais razões que explicam a sua resposta esta pergunta? ____________________________________

3. Qual a sua opinião sobre o sistema de avaliação do desempenho académico dos alunos?

1) Adequado
2) Pouco exigente
3) Muito exigente
4) Outra

Quais os principais factores positivos/ negativos que salienta sobre o sistema de avaliação de desempenho académico? __________________

4. Tem experiência em ensino internacional/ de outros países? Se sim quais? Se não, por favor passe para a questão seguinte.

Resposta: ________________________________________

Wednesday, 5th November 2008 - School Day (W16)

My fourth, and brief, meeting with my supervisor was carried out today, whereas I discussed my new ideas towards the product, as well as how I had opted to produce a blog as a process journal. Although not coming to any conclusion, this meeting was relevant, for I explained my new ideas to Ms. T, and she provided feedback to how I can format and utilize those results (explained in the preceding entry).

Nonetheless having modified my goal slightly, the areas of interaction on which I am concentrating has not changed, being that I am still looking at the cultural influences and different approaches ot learning of the different countries.

Saturday, 18th October 2008 - Weekend

Today I worked, again with father, on the research section of the product. Looking at a website that displayed the mathematics, science and languages results of an equivalent test for various countries, members of the OECD, I encoutered various ideas for my product. One of the statistical informations within this study was the comparison between the grades achieved in the country and the expected results, considering the socioeconomic factors of the country. Portugal, for instance displayed results exceedingly below the expectations, such as Spain and Italy did (2008). Nevertheless, and to my surprise (due to the stereotypes created around this idea), the country with the highest results was not an Asian one, such as Japan, which is known to be extremely rigid with education, but Finland, which overcame the grade expectations greatly. Knowledge of such data provided that my ideas concerning the research paper to be completed as the product to be altered. Because Portugal has a problem in academic achievements not only as raw data, but also in comparison to the socioeconomic expectations, I believe that it would be interesting to, by comparing Portugal's results with other countries, modify the project goal, in order for it to focus on:

"what measures can be employed in order to improve the academic results in Portugal?"

Thus, the product would require questioning the following individuals:

• Teachers in portuguese schools,
• Teachers that have taught in both Portuguese and international schools, and
• Representatives of the Portuguese Ministery of Education.

I will remain informing this journal on every aspect of my work sessions and decisions, regarding the Personal Project.

Sunday, 28th September 2008 - Weekend (W10)

Considering the advice provided by the head of the biology section of the science department and my supervisor, today my father and I researched possible prospects to be included in the investigation. Nevertheless having planned the goal to a lot of detail, I do not believe that is very liable to carry out. Therefore, my father and looked at different possibilities of results, incorporated into various sites of his acquaintance. These academic results concerned data equal for all students (therefore reliable), showing mathematics, science, literature, languages and logic comprehension results. However, not having decided which results to utilize for the product, I am planning on using results from this site. I do not believe that time will be enough in order to complete the previously planned process, and thus I see a necessity to alter the plan.