EDUC - Master of Education

In this course students will analyze what a learning environment is and apply this analysis to the description and comparison of learning environments throughout history (the ancient - eastern and western - World, the Middle Age, consolidation of customs in pedagogy, active school and the current situation of constructivism). Students will also analyze in a critical manner the learning environments in which they worked and work today and the results for each case. Based on these various analyses, they will develop and associate the concepts of pedagogical creation and practice.

In this course students will analyze what a learning environment is and will apply this analysis to the specific description of learning environments consistent with constructivism. Based on this analysis they will compare various constructions about the characteristics of a learning environment based on constructivist ideas and will justify one or some constructions through precise theoretical arguments. The course also addresses international and national learning standards in different disciplines and analyzes a given discipline from a pedagogical viewpoint. Students will choose one discipline among the ones they handle in their careers and will also apply what they learned to the critical analysis of learning environments in which they have participated and are participating today. They will also apply new knowledge to the design of pedagogical practices based in actual performances for their discipline, at the basic school or university level they have chosen.

This course is designed for students wishing to learn about the nature of sciences and their learning and teaching. The course is targeted to make participants create knowledge about the epistemology of sciences, question about how they and other learn sciences and connect these ideas to learning and teaching strategies of scientific concepts for primary school students. This learning should help them to develop their own competences in the field of science and technology and within the framework of their respective careers. The course also intends to provide students with the elements needed to conduct a critical analysis of their own learning/teaching processes.

This course is intended to provide students with conceptual, procedural and ethical tools to understand and analyze critically the relations between society and environment, from a holistic perspective in which the educational dimension plays a fundamental role. Along the course subject matters will be addressed from an interdisciplinary approach, encouraging students to foster socio-environmental consciousness and responsibility by looking for alternatives oriented towards the attainment of local and global sustainable development. In this regard, by the end of the course, students are expected to experiment on the different aspects of social organization and civil participation. As final activity, students shall investigate a problem and design a productive sustainable viable project focused to solve the problem and improve the standards of living of the communities involved.

This course provides students with the opportunity of thinking critically about some of the most relevant problems in the agenda of contemporary education both nationally and internationally. The question posed at the beginning will remain active during the course in order to discuss the background of various matters subject to discussion. The abovementioned question addresses the why an what of education. Along this line of thinking, professors and students will jointly revise three concrete education issues, currently put on the discussion table in our context: I) civil formation, ii) evaluation and quality of education, and iii) education and work.

We are born into a family, and soon after that, we are sent to places where we are expected to be educated. Kindergartens, schools, institutes of technology or universities, they all form a part of an enormous infrastructure that has been considered essential to human beings. The United Nations, for instance, has included certain elements of access to education in its indices that determine people’s quality of life. But why education? What do we expect from it? What role does it play in society? What is the meaning of it all? The answer to this question is social, ethical, political and fundamentally cultural. Different cultures have placed part of their hopes on education, but in totally different ways that reflect world views, ways of understanding and dealing with reality, that define them at a given time or period. This course explores the ways in which different periods and cultures have defined the meaning of education, with the ultimate purpose of being able to have a more in-depth, critical understanding of the meanings of education today, and the way we act in this regard. In order to carry out this study, we will focus on certain changes in periods in Eastern history, as the different educational proposals that reflect part of said change are clearer.

In this course, students will ponder over the learning generated in a class under their responsibility, or in a class they helped to design. Students are also expected to define the possible methods to enrich this learning environment. To this end, any of the following forms could be used: (1) The student may run a class in an educational institution in order to fulfill the class planning previously approved by a tutor appointed by the CIFE. (2) The student will attend the classes of a professor that works with a pedagogical innovative process in order to discuss, throughout the semester, about the forms to enrich such learning environment. This participation as co-lecturer should be previously approved by the CIFE. In both cases, the student shall gather every two weeks with a practice supervisor of the CIFE to discuss and ponder over their experience.

The tutorial is a course in which the student conducts a personal research about a pedagogy or school administration. A professor of the Master´s Degree shall be in charge of advising the student in his/her search and reflection. Both professor and student will jointly decide about the theories, readings, and researches to be consulted or analyzed. They will hold regular meetings to further gaining a better insight into the topic.

In this course the student shall have the opportunity to live various pedagogical experiences and ponder over the cooperation with other people in order to • understand, analyze, compare and assess in a critical manner the main pedagogical and curriculum theories that have affected and still influences the educational practices, • match and understand the meaning of the educational theories presented in the texts, in light of his own educational experiences as participants in the educational system, whether as students, teachers or educational administrators, • build their own concepts about the curriculum and pedagogical issues on a regular basis to devise the conceptual framework of the educational project of practice or research to be developed during the Master´s Degree Program.

This seminar is designed to introduce students to different research perspectives and internalize the tools needed to respond in logic, systematic and rigorous way to the most relevant problems within its contexts. The purpose is that students use these tools to explore areas of interest aiming at turning the knowledge generated into the platform for a better and more reliable decision making in the educational practices. Besides, the student will be introduced to useful principles, methods and strategies in project planning and implementation. The core axis of the research process is developed by addressing the epistemological and methodological principles of the quantitative, qualitative and mixed approaches.

This seminar is intended to approach two branches: pedagogy and administration. In this course, the students will discuss any kind of topics related to the student´s evaluation. The participants will learn to design, adopt, adapt, use and interpret different types of academic tests applied both inside and outside the classroom. Likewise, the participants will learn to assess the usefulness, validity and reliability of the tests and revise the impact or effects they have in the learning process and the different groups of participants (society, schools, teachers, students, family men).

This seminar is designed to familiarize students with different advanced techniques to collect, analyze and interpret empirical data obtained from a research study, while strengthening and gaining further practical knowledge of the different stages in a research project.

The dissertation is an original research about a topic associated with the student´s area of concentration. It is an individual project, but if the student took part of a research group it shall be presented as an individual report. It should be empirical, that is, the student is expected to gather and analyze data of educational environments as main source of knowledge acquisition. Master´s degree students may conduct quantitative, qualitative or mixed studies.

The dissertation is an original research about a topic associated with the student´s area of concentration. It is an individual project, but if the student took part of a research group it shall be presented as an individual report. It should be empirical, that is, the student is expected to gather and analyze data of educational environments as main source of knowledge acquisition. Master´s degree students may conduct quantitative, qualitative or mixed studies.

In this course, students will have the opportunity to experience learning activities and to individually and collaboratively reflect to analyze, from a critical standpoint, the relation between Education and TIC from different contexts and experience, and to analyze, design, develop and evaluate TIC-supported learning environments, in such a way that they may respond to actual education needs and to the characteristics of the audience. This course will be developed through experiences that will allow developing criteria vis-á-vis the TIC-supported learning environments. The main learning strategy of this course will be learning in collaborative environments. The course has its own classroom spaces (scheduled classes) and virtual spaces. These are articulated and complemented, thus allowing participants to use different experimentation, construction and learning scenarios with respect to course subjects.

By the end of the course, the student will be able to: • Analyze and reflect in a critical manner about the relation between education and TIC based on social, cultural, political and economic approaches. • Identify and assess the challenges that our current society pose to education, and based on said challenges, asses the contribution to the TIC. Axes of analysis • Social, cultural, political, economic and current contexts. • The social function of education, educational processes and institutions. • Information society and knowledge. General Methodology. The course will focused on active methodologies that promote critical thinking, to this end, students will be asked to identify and deepen in a research interest among the axes of the course.

One of the most significant Latin American contributions to world education is based on the critical pedagogy work of Paulo Freire. From a daring, radical acknowledgement of the relationship of political and education issues, critical pedagogy has question the purposes and the means of education by exploring the social role exercised. The work conducted by Freire and other critical pedagogy authors has continuously faced dilemmas and criticism from various intellectual or academic sectors, and from the society at large. Responses have been various and, therefore, at present we can observe a wide variety of critical pedagogy possibilities with internal tension. In this course, we will try to, from a permanent reflection on the practice and theory of the critical pedagogy, understand, learn and act upon our daily tasks pertaining to education.