Through its Distance Education Office, the university is teaching the B-Learning program for educators from the most remote areas of the regional territory, who are part of the Conecta ULS project.

“As a teacher of the second school year, I know that it is vitally important to appropriate new methodologies that affect our good practices, so that my students can learn through experimentation and strengthening their critical thinking. For this reason, I must learn beyond what I can find on the Internet and this opportunity that the University of La Serena is giving us is an excellent opportunity to acquire tools that aim at that, with my students as the main beneficiaries.”

The words correspond to the Language and Literature teacher at the Huatulame School, located in the commune of Monte Patria, Nixcy Bórquez, who, like 21 teachers from educational establishments in different rural areas of the Coquimbo Region, benefited from a scholarship of the Ministry of Education (MINEDUC), to take the diploma in Didactic Innovation in Initial Teacher Training, taught by the Distance Education Office of the University of La Serena (USerena) in the B-Learning modality, in order to combine face-to-face training given by a trainer and online learning activities, thus offering registered teachers the opportunity to deepen their knowledge in a non-face-to-face way.

This initiative began in mid-April of this year, under the framework of the Conecta ULS 2195 project of the USerena, through which these 21 teachers benefited, who teach at the El Guindo Basic School in Ovalle, the Huatulame School in Monte Patria , the Canela Alta School, the Irma Salas School in Punitaqui, and the Microcenter of Subsidized Private Schools in Combarbalá, all educational establishments that are part of this project.

This diploma is aimed at professionals who work in teacher training careers, as an updating tool that facilitates the acquisition of new innovative strategies and their corresponding theoretical bases that respond to the current challenges in their area.

In this context, a training program was structured consisting of five modules, in order to strengthen the skills to promote in its students a constant reinterpretation and reconstruction of disciplinary and pedagogical knowledge based on a reflective conversation between theory and practice.

Regarding this benefit, the State professor and USerena graduate in Education, Juan Valencia -who currently works as a teacher at the Canela Alta School-, assured that “this is an invaluable opportunity, because distance education allows us access quality knowledge, regardless of schedules or where we are located, therefore, I am very grateful that my university is giving this option, which allows us to continue growing professionally, without having to sacrifice other responsibilities."

Likewise, the director of the La Colorada school, Luis Renato Tapia - who is also the coordinator of the Microcenter of Subsidized Private Schools of Combarbalá -, said that “for us it is a very valuable opportunity to be able to do this course remotely (...) "And I have very good expectations of this course that Userena teaches us and I hope to catch up on didactic innovation, since education requires a lot of preparation, especially in terms of coexistence with students."

For his part, the academic and specialist in Research and Methodological Consulting of the Conecta ULS project, Dr. Sebastián Rossel - who is also Director of the Diploma in Didactic Innovation in Initial Teacher Training - emphasized that “guaranteeing access to this B-Learning diploma, allows us to formalize many of the knowledge taught through Conecta ULS, whose main objective is to bring active learning methodologies closer and enhance the capabilities of management teams, teachers and students of educational establishments in the most “away from the Coquimbo Region, through joint work with USerena academics and students.” 

Written by Romina Onel, Conecta ULS