Jorge Medina

Students’ Questioning and Creativity: How Are These Related?

University students must develop several higher-order skills along their higher education route. One of these fundamental skills is creativity. The practice of questioning is one of the modes to enhance creativity. In this paper, the authors illustrate how students’ approaches to creativity can be linked to the types of questions they ask in Higher Education. Several teaching and learning strategies were implemented in a geology course and a chemistry course, at the University of Aveiro, Portugal, as a way of promoting students’ questioning competence. The relationship between the kinds of questions asked and the students’ approaches to creativity is analysed and discussed.

Improving the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning through Classroom Research

The scholarship of teaching emerged in the last decades as a fundamental concept to the development of good teaching practices in Higher Education and, consequently, to the enhancement of the quality of student learning. Considering that scholarship comprehends a process as well as an outcome, research on teaching and learning should be viewed as one important aspect of the scholarship of teaching. The goal of this essay is to illustrate how the scholarship of teaching and learning can be enhanced through the development of classroom research rooted on students’ questioning, conceived and implemented by both university teachers and educational researchers. Valuing and stimulating students’ questions offers an innovative dimension to science education as it puts students at a central role in the learning process. This way, encouraging students’ questioning also strengthens teaching-research links by bringing teachers and learners together in a community of inquiry.

Provenance of Cambrian-Ordovician Siliciclastic Rocks of Southwestern Iberia: Insights into the Evolution of the North Gondwana Margin

This study makes a comparison between the populations of detrital zircons of the Cambrian sandstones from the Ossa–Morena Zone (OMZ) and the Ordovician quartzites from the southern domains of the Central Iberian Zone (S-CIZ) to identify the sediment sources during the development of North Gondwana basins (southwestern Iberia). The U–Pb results obtained for the lower Cambrian sandstones of the OMZ show a remarkable similarity to the detrital zircon ages of greywackes from the underlying OMZ Ediacaran basement (the Serie Negra succession). However, there is a greater proportion of Cryogenian grains in the Cambrian rocks, whose main sources are: (1) the late Cadomian magmatic arcs (Ediacaran, ca. 635–545 Ma) which also contributed to filling the late Ediacaran basins of the OMZ; and (2) the early Cadomian arcs (Cryogenian, ca. 700–635 Ma). In the Lower Ordovician quartzites of the S-CIZ (the Armorican and Sarnelha formations), the age distribution of detrital zircons overlaps the population of detrital zircons of the underlying S-CIZ Ediacaran basement (the Beiras Group). However, there are some differences in the Sarnelhas quartzites, which have a population of detrital zircons similar to those of the Ediacaran greywackes and Cambrian sandstones of the OMZ. The Cambrian grains found in the Lower Ordovician quartzites fit the ages of magmatism representing the onset of rifting in North Gondwana that is registered in the OMZ but absent from the S-CIZ. The early Ordovician zircon grains are probably related to the magmatic event that preceded the passive margin stage of the Rheic Ocean, and are found in both the CIZ and OMZ.

Provenance Analysis of the Late Ediacaran Basins from Southwestern Iberia (Série Negra Succession and Beiras Group): Evidence for a Common Neoproterozoic Evolution

This study makes a comparison of detrital-zircon age populations from upper Ediacaran greywackes of the Ossa–Morena Zone (OMZ) with those from the southern domains of the Central Iberian Zone (S-CIZ). The results reveal that the main difference between the age spectra of both populations of detrital zircon is the Neoproterozoic, in particular the Cryogenian grains. Our new data suggest that deposition in the CIZ and OMZ Ediacaran basins was coeval, indicating a long-lived magmatic event typical of the northern Gondwana margin (Avalonian–Cadomian belt and Pan-African belt). Overall, southwestern Iberia shows the following sequence of Cryogenian and Ediacaran zircon-forming events: (1) ca. 850–700 Ma, Pan-African suture (well represented in the Beiras Group and in the Mares Formation of the Serie Negra succession); (2) ca. 700–635 Ma, early Cadomian arc (dominant in the Beiras Group and in the Mares Formation of the Serie Negra succession); and (3) ca. 635–545 Ma, late Cadomian arc (predominant in the Mosteiros and Escoural formations of the Serie Negra succession). The results emphasise that the late Ediacaran basins of southwestern Iberia evolved together in the active margin of North Gondwana in the same palaeogeographical scenario but were sufficiently separated to justify the differences identified in their Neoproterozoic detrital zircon contents. This finding shows that there is no basis for considering that the boundary between the OMZ and the S-CIZ marks a Cadomian suture.