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Teaching work and educational transformation through technology discussed by Ministries of Education in the region
Within the framework of the Teacher Tech Summit Latam 2023, Elige Educar, the Regional Bureau of Education for Latin America and the Caribbean (OREALC/UNESCO Santiago), and the Innovation Center of the Ministry of Education of Chile co-organized on May 25, 2023, the decision-makers' roundtable with government representatives. The goal was to discuss and analyze teaching practices that promote educational transformation and recovery.
This event was part of the third edition of the Teacher Tech Summit 2023 considered the world's largest technology in education summit. This is the first edition in the Latin American region of the event organized globally by T4 Education, World Bank, Owl Ventures, and Fundaci贸n Coppel. The regional event brought together the voices of teachers and representatives from the world of education seeking to positively impact the education system.
At the event, experiences from Latin American countries that drive innovation and the use of technology in teaching practice were presented, with the aim of sparking discussions and reflections on how these can support educational transformation and recovery.
This roundtable responds to the need for countries in the region to share experiences that allow them to progress in the transformation of teaching in the face of the challenges of post-pandemic educational recovery. The collective learning from the implementation of initiatives that promote the use of technology in teaching allows for discovering innovative approaches and effective solutions that can be adapted to the local context.
In this regard, Ver贸nica Cabezas, executive director of Elige Educar, stated that for her organization it is extremely relevant to have participated in and co-organized these working groups, to address such fundamental issues about improving educational processes and the initial and ongoing training of teachers from the entire region.
"Global evidence affirms that any educational system and its development is explained by the quality of its teachers, and at this point, educational innovation through the use of technology - which today provides us with a space for reflection, transformation, and process improvements - is crucial. That's why we met at these roundtables with decision-makers to make this exchange of experiences based on selected and highlighted educational practices at the Teacher Tech Summit Latam 2023, to trigger important conversations and generate the necessary improvement processes for the entire region," Ver贸nica Cabezas emphasized.
Valtencir Mendes, Head of Education at the Regional Bureau of Education for Latin America and the Caribbean (OREALC/UNESCO Santiago) highlighted: "The achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 4 is closely related to the opportunities and challenges posed by technology. For UNESCO, teachers are key to recovery and educational transformation, as they play a fundamental role in the development and implementation of innovative and effective educational policies and practices that ensure equitable and quality learning. In our region, countries are making great efforts to achieve quality education through the use of technology, but they still face shared challenges. For this reason, these types of reflections based on collective learnings are of great value."
The Head of Education at OREALC/UNESCO Santiago affirmed that "by supporting the development of teachers' digital pedagogical competencies, governments and the educational community can provide more and better opportunities for meaningful learning, which in turn allows reducing inequalities through carefully designed and implemented experiences."
On his part, the director of the Innovation Center of the Ministry of Education of Chile, Mart铆n C谩ceres stated: 鈥淭he pandemic showed with even greater force that there are significant gaps in access to technologies, so it is imperative to make progress in this. But also, that mere access is not enough, but to take advantage of its potential as a pedagogical tool we have to ensure conditions that favor innovation and develop capacities in educational communities. That's why it's important to recognize the innovations that are taking place in the region, both at the country level and in educational communities, to learn together about how to promote them.鈥
Common challenges in the region
Government representatives from thirteen countries in the region participated in the event: the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, the Dominican Republic, and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. These representatives discussed around four key themes: technology at the service of planning and/or evaluating learning; the integration of technological resources for educational innovation; technology at the service of learning communities; and mentorships for novice teachers in virtual environments.
Additionally, the activity featured the presentation of initiatives aimed at promoting the use of technology within teaching practice as a means to strengthen teaching processes and learning opportunities, implemented in El Salvador and Peru.
From the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology of El Salvador, Rub茅n Quintanilla, head of pedagogical innovation and accompaniment of the National Directorate of Teacher Training, and N茅stor Moreno, specialist coordinator in initial teacher training, presented the Program for training and strengthening digital competencies for novice teachers. In their presentation, they highlighted as important achievements of this program the effective articulation in the design and implementation of the formative process, and that more than 70% of the registered teachers completed the training.
Marcelino Galindo, acting director of the Directorate of Intercultural Bilingual Education of the Deputy Minister's Office of Pedagogical Management of the Ministry of Education of Peru, presented digital tools to develop communicative competencies in native languages for the improvement of student learning in the country's intercultural bilingual educational institutions. Among the results of this initiative, Marcelino highlighted the greater interest of teachers in the implementation of digital technologies in the classroom, and in the design of more interactive and dynamic pedagogical activities.
In conclusion, 脕lvaro Salinas, director of the Observatory of Digital Educational Practices and associate professor of the Faculty of Education at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (PUC), emphasized two central elements that emerged both in the discussion and in the presentations of experiences from the countries.
On one hand, what he called "first level challenges", associated with concerns about teacher training, school connectivity, along with the provision of resources for schools and for teachers to train; all of them very current in the region and on which countries, governments, and civil society must still work.
On the other hand, within the "second level challenges", he noted that the post-pandemic scenario demands learning from what has been experienced. Regarding the latter, he highlighted as valuable learning the ability to be flexible to be prepared for possible future crises, as well as the valuation of the educational community and locally suitable responses. This, in his opinion, requires having confidence in communities, in teachers and their capacities, the basis of learning communities.
