Good teaching practices to be replicated in Latin America

A good teacher is one who has sufficient technical knowledge, can handle a classroom, is up to date with pedagogical content and techniques, and with a genuine interest in supporting students in their comprehensive development. There is vast literature and policies to promote continuous training of teachers, but their effectiveness in Latin America has plenty of room for improvement if they are to converge with that of countries like Finland, Spain and Singapore, among others.

Good practices arise from the needs of teachers to appropriate curricular strategies or successful experiences that ensure effective results based on standards or pursuing pedagogical goals. CAF—development bank of Latin America—and the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO) compiled cases from Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Uruguay with the potential to be replicated in the rest of the region with a view to enhancing the quality of education and productivity, in a study entitled Successful Policies of Teacher Professional Development in Latin America and the Caribbean.

“The cases described in the research highlight the importance of supporting teachers in the classroom, the inclusion of new learning technologies and the positive correlation between families’ involvement in their children’s education and better teacher performance. This publication is part of our efforts for a comprehensive enhancement of education systems as a cornerstone of Latin America’s development,” said Julián Suárez, Vice President of Sustainable Development at CAF.

Colombia’s Todos Aprender (PTA 2.0) program calls for support through classroom and working sessions in order to transform classroom practices of 85,000 teachers, and has increased access to and use of educational materials by teachers and students, as well as the time teachers, spend on class planning and creating learning communities, among other benefits. Thus, it has become a successful experience that highlights the need to develop teacher training projects, as this type of training has been shown to be usually low-cost and to have a major impact on classrooms.

In Uruguay, a set of innovative pedagogical strategies aimed to reduce school dropout by reinforcing more active links between schools and students’ personal environment. These strategies impacted students’ learning, enabled schools to act as a collective, both in the relationship with children, families and the community and within the school community. Community teachers work on modifying classroom management, by expanding the scope and involving adult references in learning activities that result in greater support for students, empowerment and restoring the role of adult references in families.

A case from Brazil shows that information and communications technologies have expanded nationwide an initiative aimed at building teacher capacities on gender and racism. The topics discussed in the course are relevant to Brazil and Latin America. The OECD recently published studies on PISA 2015 (OECD, 2018) showing that the gender issue has a strong influence on girls’ mathematics and science learning skills.

One good practice identified in Ecuador shows how the creation of bonds of empathy, transcending a relationship of authority between teachers and students is fundamental to their motivation to learn, thus enhancing the classroom environment, and in turn, the quality of education. Transforming teaching practices that ensure a better classroom climate, characterized by creating forums for reflection and dialogue that transcend normative disciplinary methods, has an influence on the motivation and openness of students, provided they receive on-site support.

Recommendations:

• The study of extra-regional cases (Finland, Spain and Singapore) shows that a key factor in making a significant impact on the quality of education systems is a conscientious and rigorous selection of future teachers. By making a selection based on rigorous criteria that measure applicants’ skills for a potential teaching career, countries in the study have steadily improved the quality of their education systems.
  
  
• We must understand that a teaching career is a collective construct with a significant impact on their reality. This involves broadening teachers’ vision beyond a school in a community; it also involves engaging with other public and private schools, institutions and organizations, in order to ensure that teaching careers have an all-encompassing social impact in the community.
  
  
• As good teaching practices in Latin America and the Caribbean have demonstrated, a slight boost in continuous teacher training has a significant impact on the educational model, both in quality and motivation of both teachers and students.
  
  
• Teacher assessment tools should be implemented, not only to assess the impact of their work on certain tests, but to evaluate them integrally, in their impact on the classroom and as part of the learning community of teachers, and their impact on their community at large.
  
  
• One of the main concerns is the continuity of programs developed on continuous teacher training. Teacher training programs are based on continuity and supporting institutions, which is inconsistent with budget cuts; on the contrary, they require regular government investment.

These publications are part of CAF’s integrated actions to promote initiatives that enhance access to education, improve quality at all levels and foster the relevance of educational offerings, through resources and advice that promote social inclusion of the most vulnerable groups and productive transformation of Latin America.

download the study