Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (UC): Education UC receives international advice to strengthen curriculum based on practice
The instance took place within the framework of the program to strengthen Initial Teacher Training (FID). The workshop entitled “Practice-Based Teacher Training” was led by experts from the University of Michigan, Francesca Forzani and Susan Atkins. The initiative was carried out during the first week of August in Santiago and Villarrica.
Since 2012, the UC Faculty of Education has embarked on a course that places internships at the center of the training of new professors, integrating them from the first year of their studies. This new focus in the curriculum that seeks to achieve more empowered teachers and prepared for teaching in the classroom, based on the model of the universities of Michigan and Stanford in the United States, has been maintained until today, going through different processes of updating and strengthening.
That is why, within the framework of the Initial Teacher Training (FID) strengthening program, Francesca Forzani and Susan Atkins, experts from the TeachingWorks center of the University of Michigan, visited the Faculty of Education to carry out the workshop “Teacher Training Based on in practice”. The instance was held at the San Joaquín Campus on August 3 and 4 and brought together 52 academics from different plants and roles, as well as internship supervisors and teachers from the UC Pedagogies.
“This is a workshop that seeks to deepen our training model, based on generative practices, and perhaps the most interesting thing about it is to put us as teacher trainers to experiment with generative practices and experiment with different methodologies to work with the and the students”, explained the UC Vice Dean of Education, Pilar Cox. “It is a very interesting instance to deepen and to share and build a common language,” she added.
“This is a workshop that seeks to deepen our training model, based on generative practices, and perhaps the most interesting thing about it is to put us as teacher trainers to experiment with generative practices and experiment with different methodologies to work with the and the students”- Pilar Cox, Vice Dean of Education UC
International collaboration to strengthen practices
Since 2013 there has been an alliance between the center of the University of Michigan and the UC unit, generating since then different instances of collaboration that allow strengthening and deepening its training model. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, face-to-face sessions were paused.
This is how in 2020 a virtual space was created that also included the academics of the Villarrica UC Campus and that this year is repeated in person, with a scheduled visit to the regional unit between August 8 and 9.
In the workshop, “applied activities and essays are carried out, both about what we do, as trainers, and what we expect our students to do with their children and young people in schools,” explained Magdalena Müller, director of Undergraduate of Education UC. “We seek to train teachers who have appropriation of these practices throughout their training career,” she said.
“I think it is important that in this workshop we have teacher trainers from many areas and that they can talk about how to help teachers in training. It is an opportunity for them and us to talk and agree on the role that practice has within the program of teacher training” – Susan Atkins
The space seeks to enhance the academic and academic tools of UC Pedagogies to prepare teachers in training with practices prior to professional practice, explains Susan Atkins, from the University of Michigan. “I think it is important that in this workshop we have teacher trainers from many areas and that they can talk about how to help teachers in training. It is an opportunity for them and us to talk and agree on the role that practice has within the teacher training program”.
According to Francesca Forzani, director of TeachingWorks, the center in charge of the workshop, “in many countries around the world, teacher training has not focused so much on teaching skills, it tends to be very academic. I think that both in the United States and in Chile we are trying, together, to make teacher training more focused on skills and practice, and that is why we also learn a lot from what teachers do here at UC”.
In this regard, Magdalena Müller points out that updating and sharing experiences are essential aspects: “We have to be updating ourselves on strategies that allow us to embody this practice-based curriculum and be able to develop a common vision of teaching and learning in our program. Generate interactions that allow academics to develop that common vision around the training of teachers.