This document outlines the assignment for Práctica Docente III given by tutor Aurelia Velázquez. Students are asked to work collaboratively in pairs or groups of three to analyze the aims, roles, characteristics, and challenges of secondary education in the 21st century after reviewing source materials including a TED talk. They must submit a two-page reflective essay or 5-minute video by the deadline of March 26th. The document provides background context on goals of secondary education according to curricular designs from Rio Negro and Entre Ríos, and discusses challenges today including focusing too much on standardized testing rather than skills development.

1. INSTITUTO DE FORMACIÓN DOCENTE CONTINUA
LENGUAS VIVAS BARILOCHE (A-052)
Profesorado de Inglés – Opción pedagógica a distancia.
Subject: Práctica Docente III
Tutor´s name: Aurelia Velázquez
Students´ names:
Baudis, Magali
Muller, Lilia
Romero, Liliana
Unit 1 assignment
Deadline: 29th March, 2021
Task:

2. MANDATORY ASSIGNMENT 1
The following assignment is a collaborative task. You may work in pairs or groups of
three. Each student must upload the assignment to the Campus.
Josef James, a former teacher who is passionate about education, reflects on the role
secondary school should play in society. His talk aims at inspiring some kind of change.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSixbEDOYgA
After reading the suggested materials and watching the TEDx Talk, you should draw up your
conclusions of the distinguishing characteristics that define secondary education, its aims
and foundations. You should also describe both the learner and the teacher, bearing in mind
today's challenges and requirements.
Your final outcome may be a two-page reflective essay or a 5-minute video. You choose!
Deadline: March 26

3. Aims, roles, characteristics and challenges of Secondary education in the 21st
century
Have you ever questioned the approach to learning implemented in high schools
today? What is the true role they play in society? What are the goals for education and
learning? What is established in the curricular design of each province? These questions and
many others can arise if we stop to think about the educational quality that students receive
today and the reality that both students and teachers face in the classroom.
According to the Curricular Design of Rio Negro (2017), someof the aims of secondary
education are: to offer students opportunities to develop a personal growth, to form students
capable of transforming and understanding the social, economic, cultural and environmental
context in which they are living, to implement novel learning processes and approaches in a
contextualized way, among others. Likewise, some pillars of the Curricular Design of Entre
Ríos (2010), are: to train students to exercise a participatory, critical, informed and committed
citizenship, to develop autonomy in learning, to involve learners in vocational orientation
processes,and to facilitate knowledge acquisition and skills vital for their future integration into
the productive and economical systems, among other goals. However, and unfortunately,
these aims are not being completely reflected in today's classrooms.
According to James, J. (2020), nowadays, education at the secondary level and to
some extent at the higher level works as a system that filters students, on the idea that good
grades equal good jobs. In other words, he argues that students are considered as merely
statistical numbers and those who achieve a high score are valued as good learners.
In this sense, the different skills, intelligences and passions of each student are not
taken into account. That is to say, secondary education, instead of harbouring students'
passions and developing their intelligences and skills according to their interests, states the
same rhythm of learning for everyone in a homogenous way. This means that each student
has to fit in the system and cope with the objective of each learning stage in order to graduate.
At today's secondary education, it doesn't seem to matter the great effort that students
make in order to understand concepts or contents, what really seems to be relevant is
accomplishing the objective of “acquiring knowledge” by memorizing, passing exams and
being prepared to be inserted as simple employees in the world of work. As a consequence
of this educational practice, students do not focus on achieving personal growth, instead, they
study with the purpose of getting a job in the future.
If we want young people to be future entrepreneurs and to progress in the world of
work, the development of different skills must be something primordial, as well as the foment
of critical thinking; necessary to involve effectively in social issues discussions, with their own
opinions and notions. To this aim, we need our learning system to accompany those changes
by giving the necessary spaces, tools and knowledge to the teachers and students. In doing
so, a high quality education will be given to equip the students with the skills they need to
reach their personal goals and face the challenges that the current world presents to them.
In the frame of this global educational crisis we are going through, the so-called "New
Pedagogies for Deep Learning" project arises as a proposal that attempts to make a change
in the action plan carried out by current education. It seeks to renew the goals for education

4. and learning and promote skills that prepare students to be responsible, persevering, honest
and empathic citizens. Moreover, skills to become citizens capable of communicating
effectively, using critical thinking to solve problems, making appropriate decisions, and
employing tools and digital resources that are significant in the present. Additionally, as Fullan
& Langworthy (2013) establish in their paper, the main factor to reach and accelerate these
aims is the application of technology to education, with emphasis in its multiple roles.
Furthermore, in the “New Pedagogies for Deep Learning”, the teacher's role is of
utmost importance and it presents the changes that we need in today's education. One of the
new roles is of the teacher as a designer of powerful learning experiences. She/he will adapt
the curricular learning goals according to the contents, personalities and learning modalities
of the students, with relevant, engaging and compelling learning experiences for them.
Another role is the teacher as a source of human, social and decisional capital, as their
continuous learning, relation with students, peers and community,enables them to make good
judgments and decisions when needed. And finally, the teacher as a partner in learning with
students, establishing a supportive relationship where technology and digital resources are
used to enable and accelerate the learning of each student.
In connection with the previous theoretical developments, other important contributions
are those made by Gardner (2007), cited in Velázquez, A. (2021), and by Maggio M. (2018).
These authors describe characteristics and skills that students need to develop in order to be
prepared for nowadays world´s demands. Specifically, Gardner describes five personal
characteristics that he considers fundamental to be cultivated through Education. These
involve the following: developing a disciplined mind (to think like experts in different areas),
the ability to organize and select significant contextual information, thinking creatively, being
respectful with others and valuing diversity, and finally, being ethical and responsible.
Moreover, he explains that world conditions are in continuous change and students and
teachers' minds have to be prepared to adapt to new educational aims, practices and never
stop learning.
Similar to Gardner's ideas, Maggio (2018) refers to the so-called "21st century skills".
In her work, she refers to the Cognitive Revolution of the early 1960s, which implied a change
in the understanding of how students learn. These studies remark aspects of thinking such as:
the ability to solve problems, creativity, metacognitive skills, and inductive and deductive
reasoning and inference. Quoting De Bono, she reveals the special importance of "lateral
thinking" as a complement to "logical thinking." In particular, De Bono indicates that traditional
teaching has given central importance to the second one, being that the former is essential to
restructure concepts, models and create new ones (creativity).
In conclusion, the changes that the world has undergone cannot be ignored and
education must adapt its practices in order to prepare students to insert successfully in it. In
this sense, Secondary school teachers have the responsibility to approach teaching with a
critical mind, inquiring about what is being done and what should be done. This way, it will be
possible to assure students through education the development of the skills and
characteristics they need for the present and future world.
References:

5. ● Fullan & Langworthy (2013). Towards a New End: New Pedagogies for Deep Learning.
Seattle: Collaborative Impact.
● Maggio, M. (2018) Habilidades del siglo XXI: cuando el futuro es hoy: documento
básico, XIII Foro Latinoamericano de Educación. Buenos Aires: Santillana. Retrieved
from
https://educacion.rionegro.gov.ar/admarchivos/files/ESRN/XIII%20Foro%20Documen
to%20Basico%20WEB.pdf
● Ley de Educación Provincial N° 9890.
● Ministerio de Educación y Derechos Humanos. Consejo Provincial de Educación
(2017). Diseño Curricular de la Escuela Secundaria de Río Negro. Retrieved from
https://educacion.rionegro.gov.ar/admarchivos/files/seccion_238/anexo-1-diseno-
curricular-esrn.pdf
● Consejo General de Educación. Diseño Curricular Escuela Secundaria de Entre Ríos
(2010). Retrieved from: http://cge.entrerios.gov.ar/
● Velázquez, A. (2021). Guía de estudio U1. PrácticaIII-Plan 2015. IFDC Lenguas Vivas
Bariloche.