Presented by Miguel Navarro Rodríguez* & María del Consuelo Telles Contreras**

EDULEARN 2011Barcelona Spain, 4-6 july 2011

VIRTUAL CONTRIBUTION 1698

EDUCATIONAL PLANNING BASED ON COMPETENCIES IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL:

A VIEW FROM THE TEACHERS

Presented by Miguel Navarro Rodríguez* & María del Consuelo Telles Contreras**

*Professor, Universidad Pedagógica de Durango, México.

* *Teacher of elementary school, Secretaría de Educación del Estado de Durango. Mexico.

[email protected]

*[email protected]

Abstract

• This research conducted, using the survey technique, a study on educational planning based on competencies, in a sample of elementary school teachers in one educational area of the State of Durango, Mexico.

• The research questions highlighted the perceptions relating to the educational planning process, the indicators that received higher or lower scores, as well as certain items on the impact on school performance and student learning of the educational planning.

THE COMPETENCIES APPROACH AND THE BASIC EDUCATION REFORM IN MEXICO (RIEB) A SHORT

INTRODUCTION..an official view


INTRODUCTION

• The Comprehensive Reform of Basic Education (RIEB, 2010) -prescribes more than proposes- the teachers in Mexico, a substantial educational reform: to go from a teaching model based on contents to a model based on competencies, the aim of this is to change the paradigm of the teacher’s role in the classrooms, going from an education based on knowledge and concepts, to a comprehensive education that provides the students with the tools to respond to their everyday reality and integrates the competencies which include a knowledge, a know-how, a value and an attitude, this implies that the knowledge acquired in the classroom by the students will have to be used outside the test situations at school and forces them to be competitive for life (Brossard, 1999).


INTRODUCTION

We agree with Díaz Barriga (2006), when he states:

The approach based on competencies can have a significant impact on the modification of the teaching models. Therefore the various strategies: situated learning, learning based on problem solving, collaborative learning, acquire a sense of possibility that could be interesting to examine. (P. 35).


INTRODUCTION

This takes into the plane of the teaching planning, the core of the reform and its approach based on competencies, and therefore, if the planning proposed is not left as one more format, and is appropriated by the teachers as a real teaching tool, the success of the reform in the basic education for the formation of competencies is guaranteed.

However, as stated by Bolívar (2008), even in Spain, let’s not say in Mexico- referring to the recent introduction of this trend in that country- “Pedagogy by competencies can stay as a new orthodoxy in the planning formats that has little effect on the practice of teaching.” (p.1).

SOME BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY• Struyven and De Meyst (2010), have conducted a study in Belgium,

related to the competencies that a program of formation of basic education teachers has accomplished.

• Louys et al, (2009), found in their study that the self-evaluation, the planning process and the self-regulation, are central elements that allow the participants to appropriate reflexive techniques about the competencies that have been accomplished.

• Malm (2009), considers in his research that the competencies and qualities necessary for the formation of future teachers constitute a starting point for a wide discussion about how the feelings and beliefs are involved in the process of becoming a teacher; this should give us a new important vision in the planning of the programs that prepare future teachers.

SOME BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

• Bohlinger (2007, 2008), discusses the competencies formation discourse in terms of the labor standards for the European Union and also discusses the need to standardize the terminology used in these competencies, in order to have a uniformity and clarity in the mentioned discourse field. This researcher provides us with the vision of the formation of competencies from a critical theory (Geissler, 1974).

SOME BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

• Bixio (2007), describes the importance that planning constitutes for the teachers and their job, he observes that:

• “Planning is to reflect upon the teaching labor and the most

important working instrument for teachers. Planning should be the way that the teachers indentify themselves with their job, the guide that is used for their job, their tool for work” (p.24)

• In this perspective, the planning for competencies is not only a

reflexive means to reorient the teaching practice, but also a way to gradually get closer to the achievement of the most generic competencies, the ones that are useful all throughout life. (Brossard,1999).

THE RESEARCH QUESTIONS

• The questions that were made in order to guide the course of the present investigation are:

• ¿How is educational planning based on competencies carried out by elementary school teachers, according to their own perceptions?

• ¿To what degree is the educational planning based on competencies related by the own teachers, to the achievement of concrete competencies in the classroom?

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

The following constitute the objectives that were set for this study:• -To characterize the educational planning process based on

competencies, from the perspective of elementary school teachers, in an educational area in the state of Durango, Mexico.

• -To identify the correlations that elementary school teachers of an educational area in the state of Durango, Mexico, establish between some of the components of their educational planning based on competencies and the achievement of expected learning experiences or concrete competencies in the classroom, as expected according to the educational planning.

METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH

• This study was developed under the quantitative method and the survey technique (Blanco, & Rodríguez, 2007), the variables were quantified in order to highlight the trends and statistical measures that were significant, to be able to describe and characterize the phenomenon that is being researched. On the level of study, this was descriptive-analytical, by its data recollection it was of the trans-sectional type, by the experiment design it was non-experimental, and as for the use of the data recollected it was of the correlational and not causal type.

METHODOLOGICAL APPROACH

• Several extrapolations of the data were performed, from a normal behavior toward the population set that is the object of study, because of this, the analysis of this study used descriptive statistical measures – of central tendency and dispersion – and also inferential, among which are the correlational tests, using a bivariate analysis, and also the student t test and the test for differences Anova, all of which together answered the research questions discussed earlier.

• A questionnaire with a scale of Guttman tested on reliability and validity tests, such as Cronbach’s Alpha and the contents’ validity test, according the judgment of experts. The value of Alpha reliability on the scale used was of .945, which defines it as a very reliable instrument, according the Murphy and Davishofer (En Hogan, 2004).

RESULTS

• Following the student’s t test of only one sample, the passing items in respect to the educational planning of the teachers, appear in this order: The strengths of the planning process with the approach of competencies, 7.32*, Significant learning experiences are favored, 6.78*, The strengths of that planning process, but there is a need to make changes, 5.31* and, following its introduction, there is an increase in the students grave averages, 2.39*.

• In the opposite sense, the items that show the lowest scores and do not pass the analysis made were: The learning processes under this approach are more difficult, -3.77, The student’s grade averages have decreased, -1.067 and the grade averages are still the same, 0.266.

RESULTS

• This reflects full consistency among the items of impact and the ones about process, it can be appreciated that educational planning based on competencies is perceived by teachers as a classroom work tool that is necessary to encourage learning experiences in the classroom and to improve the student’s performance, instead of considering it an unnecessary and bureaucratic-administrative resource.

RESULTS… about correlations

• The greatest number of high positive correlations with the rest of the items of process and/or impact is the item 52, which relates to the encouragement of significant learning experiences through the use of educational planning based on competencies, at the same time, item 49 which refers to: Since I introduced educational planning based on competencies, the student’s grade averages in my class have increased in several subjects and item 55 which deals with the strength and potential to solve problems, under the approach based on competencies, have an important number of high positive correlations with all the items that are favorable to the planning process.


• On the other hand, the items related to the notion of zero impact of the educational planning on learning and school performance, namely the items 50, 51, and 53, which refer to: The grade averages are still the same, have decreased, and the learning process is more difficult, these three items have absolutely no high and positive correlation among them and the items that are favorable to the educational planning process.

• The correlational analysis allows us to establish, therefore, that there are high and positive correlations among the items that are favorable on the impact of competency-based educational planning with the items referring to the process of this planning, which are well perceived by teachers.


• Finally, it is worth to highlight the fact that there is only one high and positive correlation between the items 48, there is co-evaluation and self-evaluation in educational planning and the item 54, strengths in the planning process, but there is a need to make changes. This is indicative that precisely the changes that need to be made to the educational planning process are those that deal with evaluation. It can be stated conclusively therefore, that the fundamental Contributions of the competency-based educational planning approach, according to the high and positive correlations that were found in this study, are in the order of the strategies at the classroom level, which coincides with what Díaz Barriga (2006) points out, stating that the main challenge that competency-based educational planning faces in the planning as well as the learning field is that related to evaluation (Ibon, 2010).

•

On the significant differences in statistical means among the opinions of the surveyed teachers

• Educational planning based on competencies in elementary schools is perceived in a wider sense among the younger teachers who have fewer years of service, who have higher degrees completed and that have taken the certification degree on educational planning, as highly favorable to the process indicators and impact on school performance.

CONCLUSIONS OF THE ANALYSIS

• The perceived change by the teachers in the educational planning based on competencies deals primarily in the order of the strategies, the expected learning experiences as components of the competency, the teaching sequence, the components and features, materials and resources, the timetables, the critical thinking, the reflection of the values, etc.

• There is a low application of transversality in the competency-based educational planning toward the additional projects of the Program and Plan of Elementary School Studies.


• There is an initial perception on behalf of teachers, that this kind of planning is more related to the classroom work and with the significant learning experiences that are in harmony with the professionalism in the teaching work, than with the bureaucratic-administrative monitoring proper of the educational planning based on contents and objectives.

• One aspect is identified by the teachers as an improvement of the educational planning process based on competencies, which is the integration of several kinds of evaluation methods in the teaching-learning process.


• There is a slight perception of an association between the appearances of improvements in school performance, with educational planning based on competencies.

• New qualitative studies will be necessary that follow the present research paper, in order to find out whether the battle for the appropriation of the educational planning of behalf of teachers, is lost or won, and with this, to discover what is happening in relation to the results of the Comprehensive Reform of Basic Education in our country.

Thanks very much, for your attention…

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Presented by Miguel Navarro Rodríguez* & María del Consuelo Telles Contreras**

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