A team of 22 representatives from Universidad Marcelino Champagnat from Lima participated in teaching practices activities for higher education
Universidad Marcelino Champagnat representatives and the PUCRS team Photo: Giordano Toldo
From January 15 to 19, through a partnership between the Internationalization of Graduate Programs Division of the Office of the Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies (Propesq) and the Center for Continuing Education of the Office of the Vice President for Undergraduate Studies and Continuing Education (Prograd), PUCRS offered the Enfoque cognitivo, socioemocional y metodológico de la Educación Superior course for the faculty from Universidad Marcelino Champagnat (UMCH), located in Lima, Peru.
The group was greeted by the University’s vice president, Br. Manuir Mentges, on the first day of the course to welcome them and to manifest the importance of their experience in the campus to improve educational actions at undergraduate and graduate levels, as well as to prospect future joint actions.
The program is based on training participants to apply current teaching practices that bring education, technology and gamification together, considering neurocognitive, linguistic and socioemotional aspects with evidence in neuroscience. The course was given by seven PUCRS professors from different schools and fields of knowledge: Karen Del Rio Szupszynski, Aline Fay, Asafe Cortina, Francisco Kern, Bettina Steren and Luis Carlos Martins.
Among the different themes discussed, the participants were able to understand studies on cognitive and metacognitive elements that are crucial for learning in higher education, investigate teaching and learning paradigms, in addition to studying different technical procedures for the organization of teaching, with the goal of achieving an instigating, critical, emancipatory and humanizing teaching practice. The participants from Peru are undergraduate and graduate professors from various fields, as well as graduate students and graduates from UMCH.
For the coordinator of the Internationalization of Graduate Programs of Propesq, Lilian Hubner, the course was organized based on a request from UMCH’s graduate program division, aiming to offer their faculty and students with current teaching methods. “It was a week with intense activities, guided by a deep theoretical knowledge offered by our faculty, in addition to visits to important departments of our university that support our teaching and research practices. It was equally possible to prospect research partnerships between our graduate programs and UMCH,” says Lilian.
In addition to several discussions and presentations, the professors were able to explore and get to know some spaces around PUCRS, such as IDEAR, Crialab, Student Support Center, Science and Technology Museum, Brain Institute of Rio Grande do Sul (BraIns) and School of Humanities. This opportunity also resulted in the strengthening of the existing ties between the universities, expanding the possibilities of collaboration, development of research and teaching practices.
UMCH is a university with around 2,000 students which, in 2019, was certified by the National Superintendence of Higher University Education, joining the list of Peruvian universities with excellent academic quality. In addition, the university, like PUCRS, is part of the Marist International Network of Higher Education Institutions, joining 27 different organizations with the goal of creating connections of synergy and working in their mission spaces.
