Training in Mathematics and English in rural schools in Azuay

Since March of last year, the Faculty of Science and Technology has been carrying out a linking project in the parish of Jima, Azuay province, with schools in the region to train students in Mathematics and English.

Professor René Zuñiga, in charge of the project, told the Campus how the initiative was born, what it consists of and who are the actors involved in such an important mission.

In the first instance, an ecological bath project was carried out with the Faculty of Biology school and in a Christmas visit in which gifts were given to the children of the April 20 school in Zhipta, in the Sigsig canton, the first meeting between the school leader, Yolanda Morocho, and the Dean of the Faculty, Andrés López.

Then the formulation of a bonding project was carried out that will benefit the children, in the learning of Mathematics and English, because in these two subjects the children presented problems.

In the case of Mathematics they had difficulty understanding them because they only had one teacher for all the children; With regard to English, the teachers taught without having the necessary methodological and linguistic knowledge.

The project has been developed in two stages: the first was from March 30 to September 2019, 30, and the second stage is planned from October 2020 of that year to October 2020, 2021. In the case of English , the second part is planned from March XNUMX to January XNUMX.

The first stage only worked with the April 20 school, in the Zhipta community, which has 28 students and two teachers; Each teacher is in charge of three to four grades plus the administrative part of the school.

According to the information provided by the teachers, the children in general presented a delay in the knowledge corresponding to each level of Mathematics and English, for which they asked the University that through the activities of connection with the community that they carry out students, a project is presented to help them reinforce children's knowledge of these two subjects.

The students of the University of Azuay who participated in this project have supported with the realization of didactic material, more recreational activities, pedagogical support, respecting the planning established by the teachers in the matter of Mathematics.

Regarding English, it was decided to provide training to teachers in the two fields: linguistic and methodological with the objective that the teachers can carry out a self-reflection and at the same time a self-management of their teaching practice and can improve their teaching practices of this language.

The university has facilitated, through its virtual platform, training and extended it to teachers in more rural schools located in Jima.

In the second stage, we worked with three schools in the Jima parish, with the general objective of providing pedagogical support to the students of the 20 de Abril schools of the Zhipta community, Marco Antonio Toral Vega of the Guavisay community and Manuel Guzmán de the community of Zhamar, in the area of ​​Mathematics.

The link was aimed at students overcoming the difficulties to achieve the required learning raised through the essential Basic Skills with Performance Criterion (DCD) proposed for the sub-levels of Basic General Education (EGB) Elementary and Middle in the aforementioned area .

Schools have one or two teachers for all levels, so the presence of practitioners who support in the area of ​​Mathematics is essential to support the teaching-learning process, seeking to obtain mastery of the required learning.

In the face-to-face sessions, the practitioners are making and executing pedagogical support plans, based on the proposed curricular structure, that is, maintaining the three moments of the learning cycle: anticipation, construction and consolidation, accompanied by an instrument of evaluation that allows to have knowledge of the lessons learned after the implementation of the proposal.

With regard to the subject of English, in this second stage a total of 31 teachers have been incorporated to receive the training, which has as a general objective the pedagogical and methodological support in the area of ​​English to teachers of rural schools in the province of Azuay.

For this, English classes are taught on Saturdays from 9 am to 11 am every fortnight.

Due to the COVID 19 pandemic, school teachers were trained in the use of technological tools to facilitate encounters through the zoom platform.

The teachers had several personalized tutorials to receive this training in order to consolidate their knowledge in the digital area.

This has helped teachers to also improve their educational practice through the use of different technological tools.

It is worth mentioning that the Language Unit, through the Magali Arteaga Coordinator, with the support of the Dean of the Faculty of Science and Technology, Andrés López, have spared no effort to guide teachers in this new path that we face at the global.

In the first stage of the project, in addition to Artega and López, the Science and Technology professors René Zúñiga, Gabriel Barros and Vanessa Vanegas, plus eight students from the Faculty, participated.

In the second stage, Damián Encalada, from the Faculty of Science and Technology; Juan Barrazueta, from the School of Basic Education of the Faculty of Philosophy, three students from the School of Basic Education and 12 students from the Faculty of Science and Technology.