"Whoever dares to teach should never stop learning." John Cotton Dana (1856-1929)
"In times of change, those who are open to learning will take ownership of the future, while those who believe they can fit everything will be well equipped for a world that does not exist." Eric Hoffer.
Presentation
Over the years, when we begin our preparation for life, some starting in kindergarten, then elementary school, middle school, and culminating with the university level, education occupies an important portion of our lives.
Our professional and work activity, which we carry out later, is a function of the preparation we have acquired in those years.
In some areas, this knowledge is static (it does not change over time or does not increase through the accumulation of experiences), while in others it is absolutely dynamic (the knowledge acquired must be periodically and permanently supplemented with new educational experiences).
Since the end of the 20th century, and so far in the 21st century, the panorama of "static" and "dynamic" professions has changed markedly compared to those existing in the 20th century.
As an example, we have careers that in the last 30 years have gone from having static characteristics to being declaredly dynamic; since by different means all kinds of information appear that must necessarily be read, analyzed and assimilated, and that frequently modifies, to different degrees, the current state of different areas of knowledge and concern of any profession.
The lack of time to carry out these tasks of reading, analysis and assimilation of new information makes it essential to use other auxiliary means to carry this out. For that matter, we have specialization and refresher courses that must be taken, with some frequency, to maintain, at least in one degree, a degree of knowledge of the current state of the profession.
The important thing about all this is that the professional lives the same alternatives as any product, as it advances with its presence in the market, ceasing to be attractive to its market. So you have to do the exact same thing that manufacturers do with their offerings - update them.
Something similar happens in the labor market. Organizations constantly seek to meet the expectations of their customers. As these are modified day by day, to satisfy them, companies also continually renew the requirements for their employees. So those who work in a dependency relationship have a fear, always latent, for the possibility that their employers decide to do without their services.
Therefore, updating means completing and perfecting aspects that will be valued and recognized by our environment, in relation to our professional capacity. In this sense, we must consider that any updating day includes guided studies that, normally, can facilitate the entrance to other specialties and techniques.
Today it is a competitive advantage to be up-to-date with those variables or facts that affect our professional activity, with information about our sector and with new tools for performance as they allow us to have a broader vision in decision-making on the continuity of our preparation.
Training continues
Continuous training to improve competencies and skills allows a better qualification of professionals, this refers to all learning activities carried out throughout life with the aim of increasing knowledge, abilities and skills, in addition to enriching the cultural and personal level.
The importance of continuous training in any professional field is well appreciated. Recycling and staying up-to-date is essential, in addition to being up-to-date in terms of knowledge, they must face situations that demand attention, concentration and that often pose job stress. This need for constant updating means that training is understood as a process throughout life.
It is currently required to have a career, a master's or a postgraduate degree, in addition to additional diploma training, workshops or seminars. In short, more and more training is required, organizations and markets change more and more rapidly, professionals evolve, so people with the ability to continuously learn are needed.
The decision is not so simple, updating is mainly to develop the ability to adapt to changes in the environment. However, we must not forget that the permanent competitiveness in which we live makes the known techniques age, demanding that their protagonists adapt to new techniques to solve the problems that must arise.
Here the importance of reading (the one we have wanted to promote among colleagues) is highlighted, which is, possibly, a very effective way of updating, and which is available on the web, because while it transmits information to us, it develops brain agility, to improve your understanding.
There are no fixed formulas or recipes to update, yes principles; One of them is to develop the ability to perceive the environment in order to know what its requirements are. That way we will know where we are and what are the possible routes to follow.
The 21st century university student
We know that we must now be active subjects, with main roles, attached to a context of continuous technological renewal and without the traditional ideas of non-participatory education, how or what could be said to build the student in this new century? Here are the eight characteristics.
- Protagonist of their learning: he and the student become active subjects. Learning, therefore, becomes a personal process: it interrogates and questions, it is active, it assumes the responsibility of learning, it does not wait to be taught, or to be told what will come out on the exam. Autonomy in the learning process: today not only enough to know many things, nor to repeat what is taught-learn. It is the ability to evaluate yourself during the learning process. Therefore, try to carry out this process asking yourself: “How am I doing it? Will there be a better way? It is when he is independent and motivated by himself to learn. Ability to dialogue and work in a team: he must develop a capacity to listen, respect and tolerance, and a great critical capacity for the other person (classmates, teacher).This strengthens tolerance towards the diversity of criteria and opinions.Capacity for participation: aggressive external attitude of participation: questioning their teachers, their classmates, reactions towards the opinions of others in a respectful way, critical stance towards the what the texts say. This way, you become more involved in your teaching-learning process. Motivation and strong self-esteem: our aspirations and our goals depend on (depend on) the confidence we place in ourselves. Appropriate, self-confident self-confidence favors the establishment of greater goals. Curiosity and interest in research: he and the student of the new century cannot be consumers of knowledge from books, magazines, the Internet, among others. You must be aware, to that degree,that it can generate new knowledge from that acquired. Interest in new information and communication technologies: it can foster a rapprochement between teacher and student and among their peers. The facilitation of communication and access to the most extensive and up-to-date information are the two great advantages that these technologies put at the service of today's student. Mastery of the techniques of learning strategies: students must professionalize and technify their study (acquire new and better learning strategies), if you want to be academically successful. We cannot continue with trial-and-error techniques, when it has been proven that there are techniques that are effective and efficient for many and many students.It can foster a rapprochement between teacher and student and among their peers. The facilitation of communication and access to the most extensive and up-to-date information are the two great advantages that these technologies put at the service of today's student. Mastery of the techniques of learning strategies: students must professionalize and technify their study (acquire new and better learning strategies), if you want to be academically successful. We cannot continue with trial-and-error techniques, when it has been proven that there are techniques that are effective and efficient for many and many students.It can foster a rapprochement between teacher and student and among their peers. The facilitation of communication and access to the most extensive and up-to-date information are the two great advantages that these technologies put at the service of today's student. Mastery of the techniques of learning strategies: students must professionalize and technify their study (acquire new and better learning strategies), if you want to be academically successful. We cannot continue with trial-and-error techniques, when it has been proven that there are techniques that are effective and efficient for many and many students.The facilitation of communication and access to the most extensive and up-to-date information are the two great advantages that these technologies put at the service of today's student. Mastery of the techniques of learning strategies: students must professionalize and technify their study (acquire new and better learning strategies), if you want to be academically successful. We cannot continue with trial-and-error techniques, when it has been proven that there are techniques that are effective and efficient for many and many students.The facilitation of communication and access to the most extensive and up-to-date information are the two great advantages that these technologies put at the service of today's student. Mastery of the techniques of learning strategies: students must professionalize and technify their study (acquire new and better learning strategies), if you want to be academically successful. We cannot continue with trial-and-error techniques, when it has been proven that there are techniques that are effective and efficient for many and many students.when it has been proven that there are techniques that are effective and efficient for many and many students.when it has been proven that there are techniques that are effective and efficient for many and many students.
The student must be the protagonist of the classes, not the teacher
This is stated by Tracey Tokuhama Espinosa, a North American expert in teacher training. Tokuhama Espinosa proposes a more dynamic and participatory classroom.
Capturing the attention of a student is, today, one of the greatest challenges of a teacher. In the age of video games and the Internet, the student's ability to concentrate has decreased dramatically. But for Tracey Tokuhama Espinosa there is a very effective formula, which is summarized as follows: "The student must be the protagonist of the classes, not the teacher."
To better illustrate this new model, Tokuhama, who is a specialist in teacher training and motivation, often recalls the story of Rip van Winkle2, who tells that a man slept on the bench in a plaza for 100 years and, when he woke up, noticed that most of the things he knew had changed. Surprised, he observed the supermarkets, the banks, the means of transportation, and when he arrived at the school he smiled: it was the only thing that remained intact. “That is what is happening today in many parts of the world. The teaching is the same and the physical structure has been the same for years, "says Tokuhama Espinosa, a 48-year-old Californian, professor of Education and Neuropsychology, author of numerous books and publications and director of IDEA (Institute of Teaching and Learning).
The professional development of the university teacher
The quality of the university student is proportionally linked to the quality of the teacher that forms it. In our environment, there is little concern for quality, efficiency, productivity and educational competitiveness.
In trying to develop this topic, the following personal episode comes to mind: not long ago, I met a former teaching partner and after the respective greeting he explained his discomfort at being subjected to a series of workshops, workshops, or as you want to call it, that for him they only had the intention of humping his life. My reaction was that of a disguised smile based on the fact that he did not look beyond the annoyance he was experiencing and, unfortunately, he did not fit in with the need to take advantage of the opportunity to improve his teaching career.
In the few times that I have met in my old Faculty, I have met new teachers, possessed of attitudes that seem more like godly, distant and outdated characters, with grim faces that when carrying out a self-evaluation grant God only a 10, a 9 for them, at least and 8 below, for their classmates and their students. In their classes they speak pedantically to reinforce that mystical aura that they believe surrounds them and that cannot be questioned by the students, because they know everything. Thus, it seems to me that they leave a lot to be desired.
This situation fits well with what was expressed by Bertrand Russell, renowned British philosopher, writer and mathematician, in his Conquest of Happiness: “Education in cruelty and fear is bad, but those who are slaves to these passions do not they can give another type of education ».
Francoise Rabelais (1494 - 1553, French writer, doctor, and humanist) argued that "science without conscience is but a ruin of the soul", Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533 -1592, French philosopher, writer, humanist, and moralist) came to to affirm that "it is necessary to educate the student's judgment rather than fill his head with words". Learning, understanding and knowledge diminish.
Ortega y Gasset pointed out in one of his speeches "university teaching fulfills three functions: the transmission of culture, the teaching of professions and scientific research and the education of new men of science."
These are the essential, vital aspects of all university education, to which the aims of the people in which they live must be joined as objectives in the formation of the university student. All this is not only achieved with declarative knowledge but fundamentally by the action of formative models; These models are the teachers that the student had and has. For this reason and with the aim of improving the quality of university education, it must promote an effort that aims to make a diagnosis of our benefits and shortcomings, and improve the skills that teachers already possess.
There are university professors who continue to teach the same version of any subject and are even using the same notes from when they were students. A teacher who does not provide the necessary tools to her students is plowing in infertile fields. In a human wasteland.
We are of the opinion that to the extent that teachers become aware of the importance of having a good education, whatever the discipline or field in which they operate, the path followed by the student and the teacher will been more fruitful and simple.
The teacher's function is to discover the needs or interest of their students and the objects that are capable of satisfying them. Teachers must be translators of the texts, explain what is said there; not what they think or want students to think.
Probably the great problem of the education of the future, be it face-to-face or at a distance, lies in teacher training. Its formation and permanent training is an essential question to achieve quality in education.
As we have said, professional development is the construction of professional identity, which aims to increase satisfaction, in the exercise of teaching, through a greater understanding and improvement of professional competence. Therefore, it must influence not only the personal development of the teacher, but must also be related to the development of the university organization, thus considering all possible global meaning.
Professional development shapes the professional life of teachers, where training is an important element that integrates it. Therefore, it must be clear that from the totalizing point of view expressed, training is a part of this professional development, which is also integrated by other factors such as: teaching career, professional status, remuneration system, work environment, the labor context, etc. It is in this training field where we focus when speaking about the professional development of the university teacher.
Professional development is a diverse event, which is affected by factors of different kinds, which improve the competencies and interests of the affected university teacher. Such factors (knowledge, beliefs and abilities) revolve around three aspects:
- The transformation of society, its values and its forms of organization. The progress of scientific knowledge, which will force a continuous renewal in its own specialty. The development of its teaching competence, which should lead to the mastery of theories, techniques and analytical tools to improve your own practice as a teaching professional »
In addition to being affected by such factors, the teacher presents specific characteristics and training demands, which will have to cover three needs that we can consider basic: social, educational and personal need.
Those of a social nature are referred to the efficiency of the educational system, more specifically of the individual, while those of an educational nature are aimed at facilitating learning and finally those of a personal nature, aimed at enhancing the personal life of teachers.
In short, we can affirm that the ultimate objective of these needs is the teacher's progress. Thus, an improvement in the educational system means, in principle, a growth of teachers both personally, professionally and socially. Teachers can be motivated towards their professional development when they discover that their needs can be met through learning. If we think of the university education system, obviously we also think of the university teacher. Thus, the personal and professional development of the university professor emphasizes the conceptual and organizational character of the latter, which is oriented to cover the need for change.
Teacher training, like the evaluation of their teaching activity, must positively catalyze the illusion for the improvement of their task. They must contribute to reflecting and critically analyzing their teaching customs, and modifying those that hinder the achievement of their objectives. Thus, the first phase of a teacher training plan should consist of an exercise in self-evaluation of their own activity.
When the teacher clearly identifies the learning objectives that their students intend to achieve, they are better able to reflect systematically and powerfully on their activities. The self-evaluation of the teaching activity and the identification of the learning objectives of the students are two necessary but not sufficient conditions to start an adequate teacher training program.
Teaching activity is not reduced to direct interaction with students, but extends to a wide set of pre and post active activities (planning of instructional processes, design of curricular materials, coordination of efforts, planning of new technological processes, tutorials, evaluation of the learning activities carried out by the students, etc.) that must be carried out if the learning of the students is to be ensured.
Teachers can be motivated by various factors: student development and learning; enthusiasm for her discipline; recognition, interest, praise and encouragement; the opportunity to collaborate; the opportunity to have responsibility; the challenge of professional skill; the inspiration of colleagues; career prospects.
The compulsory or voluntary nature of the training programs may vary depending on the type of teacher to whom it is addressed and the type of content it deals with. In the case of teachers who have not obtained a favorable evaluation of their activity, the programs, aimed at improving their performance in class, and the learning evaluation systems, may be mandatory.
Without this concern for the quality and evaluation of teaching activity, training programs can be reduced to a simple offer of courses that are seen as an administrative procedure, which must be covered to achieve a certain position, job stability or pass a negative evaluation, without any improvement in teaching, nor the necessary professional satisfaction is achieved, which is what allows the changes to be consolidated.
In this process of continuous teacher training, a third dimension must be considered, which refers to training in fields not directly related to the area of knowledge, nor to the teaching activity that each professional performs.
Generally, university teachers have, and have had, a long solitary history of training and, in a few cases, research. This tradition results in a slow and inappropriate learning process, a great deal of effort and time unnecessarily invested, and extremely poor results.
Training will be of interest as long as it is adapted to the needs of the teachers themselves, of which they themselves must be aware. However, it must be borne in mind that constant training and updating is difficult since pedagogical knowledge does not develop at the same rate as social changes.
Teachers must assume greater involvement in reflection and research processes on the effects of their university occupation. To better understand teaching practices and teaching situations, they can develop educational innovation and training projects working collaboratively.
In short, it is necessary to create a framework that regulates the true university teaching career, where the training of teachers has a relevant position, and in which a change in attitudes is promoted, which leads them to feel the need of a continuous improvement of the teaching activity in their professional development.
The absence of specific training by the university teacher is a circumstance, which in most countries has become a concern. The training of university teachers is an improvement activity, not only of them as professionals but also as people, since it establishes reflection processes in teachers, through dialogue with colleagues, to strengthen or change their beliefs.
The teacher must be aware of the importance of updating and preparing to carry out their work more effectively and efficiently. You must be aware that if it is not updated, if it is not prepared, it will have serious limitations in order to perform with quality.
Hence, they must highly value and appreciate teacher updating and improvement programs, both on the didactic level, as well as in the field of their disciplines, in the specialty they are trained in and which must also seek a process of renewal and updating of their knowledge ».
There is an urgent need for a new university teacher, a new culture of teaching, new digital tools in classrooms and to reinforce the field of research with laboratories and financial resources; if we don't, we will be in the same environment of several decades ago.
I end by quoting (from Semina Fidei -August 11, 2014) “The young man who does not finish his studies, the businessman who does not dare with a business, the teacher who does not update, are examples of people who do not succeed in their jobs. lives. Situations in which one does not want to pay the tax that supposes the sacrifice, the delivery and the dedication to reach higher goals ”.
“A teacher affects until eternity; You can never tell where his influence ends. " Henry Brooks Admas (1838-1918)
"The teaching that leaves its mark is not the one done from head to head, but from heart to heart" Howard G. Hendricks.
Note: For a deeper understanding of all of the above, I recommend reading: “The new university”; "The new teaching challenges of university education".
