Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

This article reflects on the underlying ethical principles associated with teaching at the college/university level. Latin America´s public universities currently face ethical challenges amidst voracious globalization and economic policies which threaten to turn them into companies that respond to neoliberal interests by commercializing educational commodities and services that are financially profitabile. In light of these circumstances, universities, which have existed for the past thousand years, have undergone various transformations ranging from a focus on teaching to research and social action. Nevertheless, since the end of the last century, institutions of higher learning worldwide, have been faced with the need to focus on selling services and become more international, which poses an ethical debate regarding the mission of public universities and its impact on the professional endeavours of the faculty and the principles that govern university curricululm development. An effort must be made not only to provide a well-rounded education for students, but one that also embraces social responsitlity, intrinsically associated to Latin American state universities, given the complex social struture in the region that has wrough on an economic capitalist model, as is the dominant structure in the majority of countries throughout the world.

While there is a significant amount of compelling evidence to support written corrective feedback (error correction), it is also acknowledged that research findings may not be applicable or conclusive enough given the great variability among studies. Nevertheless, no systematic attempt has been made to review and synthesize the extensive amount of literature to identify the sources that lead to such variation. This study aims to identify such variables. Results indicate that in a research base of 76 relevant publications, variations can be explained based on 11 main sources. Pursuant to these findings, this study sketches the main variance-related problems and outlines design recommendations to further expand L2 research and practice of error correction in Second Language Acquisition.  

The objective of this study is to quantify educational inequality in Latin America in 2000, 2003, 2006, 2009, 2012 and 2015, identify which countries had a better ranking during each period and where each country stands today with regards to that position. The assessment is based on a weighted synthetic index that includes data from the Basic Educational Inequity Index (IIEB-2014) proposed by Formichella (2014), a Household Survey conducted by the Center for Distributive, Labor and Social Studies (CEDLAS) and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). The index was calculated for the following countries: Argentina, Mexico, Peru, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic. It was concluded that despite a general reduction in educational inequality in most of the countries studied, the current ranking remains unchanged while the level of educational inequality still continues to remain high.

The contribution of this article focuses on a critical and reflective stance on curriculum of mandatory levels of education, specifically that of Physical Education, which is presented by the Ministry of Education of Ecuador, the modality of this publication is essay type, and in this the curriculum is defined as an innovative, open and flexible proposal, in which the future bachelor will be able to be autonomous from the practice of physical activity , raised from the profile of the Ecuadorian baccalaureate, based on the need of society, designing three profiles in which future citizens have competence in Justice, Solidarity and Innovation. Having made a thorough review of the curriculum, it allows us to establish a critical position that leads us to reflection, since the philosophical, pedagogical, social, ethnographic, psychological principles of the base document are not framed to the approach of each sublevel. It should also be noted that performance skills are not well constructed, following a logical sequence, and therefore do not always reflect a progressive order in addition to having a contextualization away from the reality of the country.  Keywords: Curriculum; Physical Education

The objective of this research was to determine the potential for help of the family nucleus in the process of teaching and learning of mathematics in the Educational Unit School "Ciudad La Tendida", municipality Samuel Darío Maldonado of the Táchira State. Methodologically, he relied on the positivist paradigm with a quantitative approach, based on the descriptive, field, non-experimental and transactional level. A sample of 5 teachers, 70 students and 70 parents and / or representatives was used, who were administered a questionnaire type scale of 21 items. It was concluded that parents and representatives sometimes provide support to their children in the process of teaching and learning mathematics, there are few meetings with the teacher to know their academic performance and it is not often that they encourage study habits, bringing with them difficulties in learning seventh grade math.

The pedagogical project for children and teenagers under the age of 18 years, who are institutionally sheltered at the Children National Protection System (PANI), conceives, as part of its strategies, all the actions guiding and promoting the interdisciplinary work of the teachers who work at the 40 shelter-homes the project works for along Costa Rica. This project seeks to strengthen the academic and emotional skills of these children and teenage population through the teachers’ support, who work with them, in nine different academic disciplines. Thus, the objective of this study is to evaluate the interdisciplinary work from the perspective of the professionals; it tries to understand the efforts done in the praxis to strengthen children and adolescents’ skills. The study used a qualitative and descriptive design. The analysis of the information considered the meeting minutes and open-ended questions from a questionnaire administered from 2016 to 2018. As a result, it is relevant to state that teachers positively valued this experience, and it has allowed interesting synergies for the children’s common good.

This study describes the results of a study derived from the extension project Models of Pedagogical Management (MGP in Spanish), conducted in public schools of the provinces of Heredia, Alajuela and San José, under the responsibility of the Division of Education for Work (DET), from the Center for Research in Teaching and Education (CIDE) of the National University (UNA). The aim is to analyze the influence of the development of pedagogical management models in the participating schools between 2005 and 2013, in the Costa Rican educational field. It also aims to establish the relationship between the variables “participation and change” and the category “innovation” and its effect on the teaching and administrative group. This study applies a mixed methodology (Creswell, 2009) since it implements a quantitative and qualitative approach. From the qualitative approach, phenomenology is considered by reflecting on the meaning and sense that the group of participants brings to the MGP process concerning methodological innovations in the classroom, collective spaces, and administrative organization. While the quantitative approach is carried out with an ex post facto and cross-sectional design because it responds to the perception of the participating group, it explores elements and factors that influence participation and the attitude towards the change in the development of the MGP. The study group comprises 72 project participants, 78.6% are teachers, and 21.4% are directors. Among the significant results are that participation and change are necessary to move towards pedagogical models more in line with the institutional reality. MGP contributes to methodological innovation and is the product of participatory and collaborative work, designed from the needs and interests of educational contexts. The main implication of the research is to offer academics and researchers a reference based on evidence that can be consulted in future studies on the quality of pedagogical management in Costa Rican educational centers.

The article analyzes the experience of eleven coordinators from the Superior Normal Schools of Colombia (ENS). They enrolled in the Educational Social Innovation Program. The goal is to study their perception of educational leadership based on values and innovation. The methodology used is the systematization of experiences, with a qualitative approach that articulates descriptive research and the method of research and documentary analysis. The results were obtained through the conceptual, comparative, and relational analysis of eleven leaders-coordinators’ contributions from the Superior Normal Schools. In these institutions, the analysis identified some aspects characterizing the innovative educational integral leader as someone who contributes to solving socio-educational problems. These can be solved from responses located in the territory and from a sense of belonging that integrates the different spheres of life experience. This means prioritizing dialogue and solidarity and assuming tension and conflict as part of ongoing learning from an axiological framework. Likewise, the analysis found that the territory, the educational projects, and the strengthening of community-based competencies constitute aspects that make an integral, innovative, educational leader someone capable of combining community methodologies based on in-depth knowledge of the communities’ problems.

In education, a paradigm is shifting to a more innovative teaching-learning process. Specifically, this paradigm focuses on including video games in classrooms as a teaching resource intended to obtain a more entertaining, efficient, and pleasant quality education for students. The proposed research aims to analyze whether there are significant differences among users of video games on the benefits or harms they bring, especially in education, or there is a positive or negative general opinion, as other authors noted, on the influence of video games on users’ behavior. To analyze the viewpoints on video games, first, we do an exploratory study through the literature. Then, we do a correlational survey study where Cluster Analysis and Multiple Correspondence Analysis are used. In this study, we took 400 Spanish consumers aged between 11 and 64 years without discrimination, regardless of sex. Among the results obtained, we can emphasize the creation of several groups with significant differences in their points of view, in some cases, very positive and in others more conservative. These results lead to conclude that the users’ opinions about how video games can affect their self-growth are being more positive, opening doors for using video games in education and other sectors.  

The short curriculum titled Landscape and Sustainability, a new optional subject implemented in Galicia (Northwest of Spain), allows teachers to design their didactic programs with an important degree of autonomy when they do not have to be subjected to normative prescriptions. This circumstance allows analyzing and seeing the influence of the teachers’ social representations (SR) in the classroom around their teaching practice, the subject, and the type of educational context that favors innovation. This research article aims to answer that, also to identify how three secondary teachers conceive the innovation possibilities offered by this new subject, and to what extent they believe that this develops innovative educational attitudes in the didactic practice. It is a qualitative study whose data was obtained by applying three semi-structured interviews with open questions organized in blocks. These blocks were analyzed using the constant comparison method. The three teachers coincided with (1) an integral and critical view of the educational context; (2) they gave importance to the use of active methods and a critical approach as the key to success in their proposals; (3) the possibility of providing specific knowledge around the landscape supported by an interdisciplinary perspective; (4) they primarily aimed to have the students identify with their surroundings as a way to promote their social responsibility with those places; and (5) in two cases explicitly, and more indirectly in the third, they linked their proposals about the surroundings with heritage elements, pursuing different learning objectives. The analysis of these representations allows advancing the pre-eminence of the teacher’s disciplines over their interdisciplinary intention. Furthermore, it can be observed a tendency to make up students’ identities with places or heritage elements linked to the aesthetic, historical, or traditional factors.