CAFTe – Curriculum, Assessment, Training and Technologies in Education

About

The research community of practice CAFTe - Curriculum, Assessment, Training and Technologies in Education/CIIE-FPCEUP consists of CIIE's integrated researchers and collaborating researchers who have developed or are developing their master's and doctoral dissertations in Education Sciences, teachers or education technicians in different fields of formal education, namely in School Groups and Training Centers.

As a practical community of research, CAFTe elects formal education as its study object, with a special focus on education and evaluation policies and their relationship with curricular practices that fulfil them at different levels of education; teacher training models in their relation with education conceptions and policies that support them; technologies in their relationship with the development of skills inherent in a digital society.

In its structure, CAFTe has as main objectives:

  • to promote the approach to a collaborative research practice between CIIE’s researchers and teachers and other technicians who work in formal education contexts;
  • to produce knowledge that intersects the different axes that made CAFTe;
  • to investigate current issues of the educational field;
  • to disseminate the knowledge produced;
  • to support research networks with academics from Angola, Mozambique and Brazil.
These general objectives are achieved through more specific ones such as:
  • sharing ongoing research projects, such as PhD theses, master's dissertations, research projects funded by FCT or projects proposed by researchers from CAFTe community;
  • discussing adopted theoretical and methodological perspectives;
  • reflecting on the meaning / usefulness of the knowledge produced taking into account that formal education is the privileged context;
  • producing articles for dissemination, in indexed journals, of the knowledge produced;
  • organizing scientific meetings to share and analyze the knowledge that is being produced.
The CAFTe community is organised into sub-groups, and work is carried out either by sub-group teams or in the large CAFTe group. This work takes on the following configurations: 
  1. Sessions of the large CAFTe group to: i) organise the annual plan; ii) analyse projects proposed by members of the CAFTe community; iii) prepare activities to be carried out by each sub-group; iv) share and collectively reflect on the work carried out by the different sub-groups; v) take stock of the actions carried out; vi) present and discuss theoretical and methodological guidelines; vii) analyse processes for disseminating the knowledge produced by the CAFTe community; viii) organise seminars and thematic conferences open to the academic community and other researchers and educators.
  2. Sessions by sub-groups to: i) develop the work for which they have been given responsibility in the annual plan; ii) develop the projects proposed to the CAFTe community; iii) systematise the knowledge produced by the sub-group and organise its dissemination. In the case of members of the CAFTe community who work in Angola, Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe or Brazil, and who are involved in projects in various sub-groups, communication takes place online, by email or other form of distance meeting. 
In all cases, the dynamic established by this CoPIn seeks, on the one hand, to contribute to expanding knowledge in the areas that structure the CAFTe action axes and, on the other hand, to contribute to the development of innovative practices that support responses to the challenges that today face education/school training that prepares for uncertain futures (Sinnema & Aitken, 2013).

Website

https://www.fpce.up.pt/cafte/index.html

Coordinators

Team

Contact

CAFTe/CIIE - Centro de Investigação e Intervenção Educativas
Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciências da Educação da Universidade do Porto
Rua Alfredo Allen
4200-135 Porto, Portugal

Phone: +351 220400639

Email: cafte@fpce.up.pt