Ship of FoolsIn the open of her long novel, Katherine Anne Porter has the idea about how is Veracruz in reality. She said that the people who live there are very fond of themselvesok, here she mention that people of Veracruz are pretending be someone that they dont, only fond between the real natives of there, so, at first look you can be interesting about her point of view about Veracruz and its atmosphere, and maybe think that once time when you heard something about a very fantastic vacations that someone had, would make you feel that you was cheated because Katherine said that Veracruzanos have methodical brutality behavior, with this, you would think a little more to go there. She said too that Veracruzanos pretends be charmed with the visitors of their city. Personally, I think that it depends of the point of view of each one, because maybe you once traveled to Veracruz and you got a happy experience of there, or maybe you had a bad experience with the Veracruzanos because they was very offensive with you, or other kind of situation. I think that Katherine traveled there and she was the person who got a bad experience with the natives, and the city.

Derehi Alitzel Garcia Ortiz

Abstract: This chapter investigates the concept of competence which is an important element of education and training reform and also of industry-based reform in many countries. The authors discuss different interpretations of the concept of competence: positivist, humanist, critical and postmodern. The positivist perception of competence focuses on the technical aspects of work and has a narrow view of competence in the workplace. The humanist orientation emphasises the social and cognitive aspects of work. The critical perspective suggests that competency based education and training operates within a social, political and economic environment characterised by an exploitative set of power relations which shape learning. In conclusion, three assumptions common to poststructural and postmodern literature relating to perspectives on competency-based education and training, are described.

This publication addresses issues involved in universal design for learning as they relate to full access to the general education curriculum for students with disabilities. It begins by discussing curriculum access and student engagement according to the federal mandates, which require students with disabilities to be given the opportunity to participate in the general education curriculum. Universal design for learning is described as providing flexible curricula materials and activities that offer alternatives for students with disparities in abilities and backgrounds. Charts illustrate how universal design for products and environments differs from universal design for learning, with its three essential curriculum qualities (representation, expression, and engagement). The publication closes with suggested first steps in implementing universal design for learning. An appendix provides a framework that summarizes the salient principles of universal design in a practical context to help teachers and other interested individuals consider how the tools employed in the classroom can realistically provide broader access to the curriculum for all students. It describes alternatives that reduce perceptual barriers, cognitive barriers, motor and cognitive barriers to expression, and describes alternative ways of encouraging engagement in the learning environment. (CR)

Competency-based learning or Competency Based Education and Training is an approach to teaching and learning more often used in learning concrete skills than abstract learning. It differs from other non-related approaches in that the unit of learning is extremely fine grained. Rather than a course or a module every individual skill/learning outcome, known as a competency, is one single unit. Learners work on one competency at a time, which is likely a small component of a larger learning goal. The student is evaluated on the individual competency, and only once they have mastered it do they move on to others. After that, higher or more complex competencies are learned to a degree of mastery and isolated from other topics. Another common component of Competency-based learning is the ability to skip learning modules entirely if the learner can demonstrate they already have mastery. That can be done either through prior learning assessment or formative testing.