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The Seminar on Initial Teacher Training, which brought together academics and education experts from across the country in Valparaíso over two days, received a very positive evaluation. The event was organized by the University of Playa Ancha and the Council of Rectors.
The Seminar on Initial Teacher Training, which drew a large number of experts, was held in Valparaíso over two days (November 20 and 21) at the University of Playa Ancha. The meeting analyzed policies related to teacher training and reviewed both teacher evaluation systems (with an emphasis on the Inicia test) and the practicums of student teachers and their situation within their training institutions.
The meeting brought together leading experts in the field. The first presentation, “Initial Evaluation and Teacher Management,” was given by the distinguished academic Erika Himmel (Pontifical Catholic University of Chile), recipient of the 2011 National Education Award. After outlining the complex current situation regarding teacher evaluation, she concluded that “teacher evaluation has begun in Chile, but it lacks further development in areas such as the creation of more effective instruments for evaluating curriculum designs.”.
Her presentation was commented on by academics María Liliana Delgadillo (Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso), Cristián Sánchez (Pontifical Catholic University of Chile) and Jaqueline Gysling (University of Chile), plus the contributions of other seminar attendees.
Student as center
On the first day of the seminar, the importance of practical experience in the training process of future teachers was highlighted, a topic that was analyzed extensively the following day by Horacio Walker (Diego Portales University) and discussed by academics Carla Barría (University of Concepción), Pelusa Orellana (University of Los Andes) and Claudio Almonacid (Metropolitan University of Educational Sciences).
Walker highlighted the significant heterogeneity that exists in our country when it comes to addressing teaching practices, despite the consensus on their importance. “It seems that, as a country, we still lack a consensus regarding what a student should be doing in the final stages of their teacher training, in something that defines a teacher, such as teaching classes.”.
This is not the only uncertainty regarding students. A quick exercise proposed by the Academic Vice-Rector of UPLA, Tito Larrondo González, yielded a unanimous opinion from the seminar attendees: there are no policies regarding university students, especially those in teacher training programs.
Positive balance
María Teresa Marshall, executive director of the Council of Rectors, described this seminar as “the most thought-provoking” of those organized annually by her organization within the framework of the working committees of the academic vice-rectors of the Council of Rectors of Chilean Universities (CRUCH). This event, organized jointly with UPLA, featured for the first time a collaborative analysis of “the lack of public awareness, both nationally and among universities, regarding initial teacher training.”.
This lack has generated an inorganic and even competitive work of the universities, so Marshall proposed to continue working on this issue with the vice-rectors and other groups of academics "to raise this vision on initial teacher training, which from there will go to public policies, to evaluation systems and to universities"“
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