Abstract

ESPANA CHAVARRIA, Carolina. The Teaching Competencies: A Case Study Done in the Social Science Faculty at UNA. Reflexiones [online]. 2014, vol.93, n.1, pp.207-222. ISSN 1659-2859.

This article has been elaborated based on the results obtained from the doctoral research on “The underlying and explicit competence in teaching practices promoted in the Social Science Faculty at the Universidad Nacional of Costa Rica”. The intention is that this study responds to the contribution on the possibilities and challenges of the much-anticipated educational changes. To cope with the research objectives the social context and its educational demands were taken into account in order to give competent answers to the challenges imposed. The teaching staff was the target of the study, as the key element that gives meaning to the learning promoted derived from the development, internalization and implementation of renewed competencies, which allow them to analyze, synthesize, reason critically, explain and relate their thinking and the student’s one. In the research a “field or common space” where several lines of study took place: a. Essential competencies, with the study of authors and the pedagogical approach derived from the theoretical/practical exercise done by teachers; b. The students’ significance about the meaning and importance of the competencies for their learning and professional development, and c. Competency-based curriculum profile taken in the institutional documentation; obtaining one of the most important results, and the need for consistency between the explicit competencies promoted by the educational group and those display in the process of autonomous knowledge construction.

Keywords : Teaching skills; Knowledge society; Learning; Professional autonomy; Professional development; Teacher training; Higher education; Building knowledge; Reflexive practice.

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