Although this year challenged all education systems in the world, from before, the challenges of modern life were already significant. Immersed in the 4th Industrial Revolution, everything is transformed at great speed and during 2020 the changes have accelerated. That is why the Ministry of Public Education of Costa Rica (MEP), with the cooperation of the Private sector implement the Program “Reinventa Tu Clase (RTC)”, in support of the process for curricular transformation that is lived in Costa Rica.
Reinventa Tu Clase is a functional pedagogical proposal that integrates technology for the development of skills in the areas of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) and promotes methodological change. This program was very successful in Spain, the country where it started, and Colombia; now, it fits the remote education context that is implemented in Costa Rica.
For Santiago Chan, one of the coordinators, “Reinventa Tu Clase is a proposal that enhances the way we are educating our young people. It is an entire pedagogical experience that responds to the skills development needs that the world in which we live demands of us. These young people are increasingly critical, creative, and we must give them the tools to develop their full potential”.
The Reinventa Tu Clase learning model is developed at the Luis Dobles Segreda High School, in Sabana, San José, and is divided into four areas of experience, where students are more protagonists than ever: they think and discuss projects, design and deliver them, shape their ideas to present the proposals to classmates and teachers. When the students of this institution have the opportunity to return to face-to-face classes, they will also be able to make use of technological tools such as robotics and 3D printing.
Modernizing the educational system
For the Academic Vice Minister, Melania Brenes, “this is one more step that we as a country take to advance the modernization of education, Costa Rica implements the curricular transformation and Reinventa Tu Clase fits perfectly with what the MEP wants to achieve and what the current situation has demanded of us”.
The curricular transformation that the MEP is promoting in Costa Rica, and to which the support of private companies is also added, visualizes the formation of human beings based on the development of skills that are integrated in four dimensions:
1. Ways of thinking: refers to the cognitive development of each person, so it implies skills related to the generation of knowledge, problem solving, creativity and innovation.
2. Ways of living in the world: it is the dimension that involves sociocultural development, the interrelationships that are woven in global citizenship with multicultural roots and the construction of life projects.
3. Ways of relating to others: it is related to the development of bridges that are built through communication and collaboration.
4. Tools to integrate into the world: it is the appropriation of digital technologies and other forms of integration, as well as the attention that must be paid to the management of information.
Reinventa Tu Clase is an initiative to explore, create and share in order to develop skills. A pedagogical proposal where projects are managed, problems are solved with creativity, information is transformed into knowledge and strategies are developed to communicate and cooperate, always with the student as the center of the formative process.
