By: maría antonia casanova

Methodological strategies

When referring to methodology, the center must consider all options since it is not obligatory to follow a particular methodological model. The only criterion for the model is that it must harmonize with the expected objectives and contents that are being worked.

Methodological change becomes essential when there is a specific reason for that call for change. For example, student participation is on the increase, according to many professors. This makes a varied methodology in which the professor’s expertise is combined with the individual activity and teamwork of the student ideal, as is the use of varied resources or didactic materials which consider different learning styles, rates, levels, capacities, different cultures, and social situations. By using varied methodological styles and materials, curricular modifications can be facilitated. Our main principle must be to regard differences, of all types, as enriching for all. We must use diversity as our basis to the varied methods applied in classrooms.

It should not be forgotten that the student learns through what he or she does more than what he or she is told. What is done in the classroom is marked by the selected methodological model. Based on this principle, I want to indicate that many of the general missions now set out in the curriculum demand a combined methodology, active and respectful of those differences, knowing that they will not be reached otherwise. To participate is learned by participating, to value is learned by valuing, to respect is learned by respecting. It is not a matter of studying, but daily applying this in the classroom. Methodology also becomes a content of learning because it is learned by doing, and the way to arrive at the objectives constitutes the methodological strategies that are adopted. We have to employ easier, more complex, or different activities, judging case by case.

Evaluation

Testing constitutes the factor of conditioning factors more than any of the other educative practices. Students cram for end-term exams that only award memorization and a valuation based on a precise test that demonstrates what is known, even though it will be forgotten the following day. Whatever has been memorized is forgotten during vacation periods. This model tends to homogenize as it teaches and tests them uniformly, applying the same test to all without differentiating its initial potentialities. It does not attend to those who do not pass the standard testing, nor let those who have surpassed the test move on. In this way, non-stereotypical pupils in the established model are marginalized from the system (first educative then social), causing serious repercussions on their lives.

It is time we stop using evaluation only to verify, and to begin to use it to improve (Stufflebeam&Shinkfield,1987). All scopes of performance must be improved; including, the learning processes, teaching methodology, school operation, administration, etc. A model of continuous and formative evaluation which attempts to evaluate processes and not only results must be incorporated from the beginning of the educative process and continuously offer data about learning development (Casanova, 1995). By using this model we are allowed to favor learning in a continued and personalized way with each student, without limiting them to certain parameters. This makes it possible to actually accelerate the rate of education because this evaluative model does not force or restrict the advancement of a person by the establishment of a rigid and equal evaluation for all. If the model considers diversity, the evaluation should not be used as an informational element of people, but as a key for the diversification suitable for learning.