Teaching life: the key to educational innovation
Unamuno, writer, playwright and philosopher, devoted many efforts to the study of teaching and teacher and student relations. Don Miguel used to insist that the teacher should not be observed as a temple of knowledge, but as a mediator of learning. He was an innovator.
And innovation has a lot to do with the teaching model that transmits the Universidad Francisco de Vitoria, that each course prepares the best teachers that society needs through the Degrees in Infant Education and Primary Education. A training based on practical criteria, in the common work with the students, with employability results that are in the 100% environment.
Transmitting to the children that knowledge and values that will help them to develop throughout their life is only achieved with a suitable training, based on innovative methods such as those used in the Anglo-Saxon or European universities, with an open and pedagogical vision in which the family also comes into play.
Teach diversity
Teaching the best is usually always easier than adapting to the abilities of each student. The UFV faces this challenge with an Expert Degree in Attention to Diversity Focused on the Person who works inclusive education, one that pays due attention to students with specific support needs in the school. Working on each child's talent is behind this educational task.
Of the success of these titles, extremely practical, it gives account its results: they are the own professors and experts who finish in many cases hiring the students in view of the knowledge acquired by the latter. The use of methodologies in which they learn through the cooperation of students, or through the resolution of problems, are at the base of these programs that are developed in classes, workshops, ongoing activities with children and dynamics close to professional life . There have also been cases in which students recently left the UFV have been called to transmit their knowledge to teachers with more than two decades of experience in the treatment, for example, of autism.
Education, at the Francisco de Vitoria University, is focused as a challenge and a responsibility. Without going any further, the subject of tutoring pays special attention to the involvement of families and encourages accompaniment in the educational process of children.
A comprehensive work, away from the traditional tutorials, which in this case incorporates and accompanies the families so that they are part of the teacher-student ecosystem as a whole.
Degrees of teaching destined to excellence
Within these Degrees of Teaching deserves a separate mention the Excellence Program for Teacher Training, which seeks to attract future teachers who can best convey the values, mission and way of understanding the education of this University. We are facing a project designed for students with a strong vocation for teaching and a profile that is committed and identified with the mission of the UFV. The students of Infantile or Primary Education that meet these requirements can enjoy a scholarship of 100% of the cost of the Degree and a specific program of additional training.
The professionals of the teaching who study their career in the UFV acquire, on the one hand, the deep knowledge of the subjects that they will impart to their students; on the other hand, the understanding of the child's psychology and the processes that come into play in their learning, as well as the preparation to develop strategies aimed at facilitating this learning as a practical experience; and finally, of course, the ability to reflect on the role that teachers occupy in the world and the importance of putting their professional lives at the service of others.
As Unamuno would say there is no avarice, but quite the opposite, who transmits their knowledge and also does it on the path of excellence.
Teresa Rivas Gómez. Department of University Information and Guidance at the Francisco de Vitoria University
