Gonzalo herman
01/25/2021 17:01
Clarín.com
Society
Updated 01/25/2021 5:50 PM
The protocols for the
face-to-face return to classes
present some difficulties that schools must resolve.
Although educational authorities are releasing
guides that help organize day-to-day life
, going back to the classroom in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic requires much more in-depth and problematic planning.
Added to this is the refusal of the teachers' unions to open schools, with which many institutions foresee that they will have
a reduced staff
to carry out the teaching in the classrooms.
Last year, in October, when presence partially returned, the Federal Council of Education had approved a
complementary health protocol
, which included an
"epidemiological traffic light"
to enable the return of classes.
There it was established, as a general rule, that students had to go to school
two hours and in batches
: they have classes in bubbles of
a maximum of 10 students
, with the same teacher, and with a periodicity of
once a week or every 15 days
, depending on the establishment.
Now, in the countdown to the start of the 2021 school year, the goal is to
save time in the classrooms
.
"We made the decision and we are convinced that what our children need is to be present," said the Minister of National Education, Nicolás Trotta, last week.
In the City, a summer school program is being developed, for the boys who did not reach the objectives set for last year.
Each province must establish its rules
.
In Buenos Aires, for example, the objective is to have presence from Monday to Friday in those schools with reduced enrollment.
In those with a greater number of students, there will be steps through dual or hybrid schemes that combine face-to-face and non-face-to-face activities.
The City - which brought the start of classes forward to February 17 - presented a staggered return plan, with
4-hour face-to-face sessions
.
Faced with doubts about what it raises to parents how this protocol will be implemented in schools, from the City Government they explained to
Clarín
: "The proposal seeks that
everyone can attend every day in person
. If this were not possible in a school in particular, there will be
a remote proposal
for the time they cannot be present. Both with booklets and work materials and the possibility of virtual classes ".
Will they see the same content as their classmates at school?
"For the cases in which the face-to-face proposal has to be limited, a
'flipped classroom'
work scheme is proposed
where practical contents are prioritized in face-to-face instances and more theoretical ones in remote instances.
The teacher who is in charge of the classroom has the possibility to define the proposal.
You can put together specific content, or propose synchronous instances during the hours that your peers from the curricular areas are in charge of the face-to-face groups ".
The boys will return to school with guidelines and protocols that each district will establish.
Faced with this series of recommendations by educational authorities, institutions must
plan how to implement them
.
Estela Dominguez Halpern, rector of the Luis A. Huergo Industrial Institute, in San Telmo, said that "as a technical center, we are
promoting the presence of children in our laboratories and workshops
, in all those activities where virtual simulation was not enough to work adequately in content integration. "
Estela said that at her school during February "the students will be divided into groups and will attend the laboratories, by means of a schedule,
two or three times a week
, a single shift, that is four hours. The idea is that the students experiment with the teacher ".
In Huergo, they are also designing
a new didactic model
, whose qualification is with a rubric and not with a grade, with the aim of "focusing on the students' abilities and skills."
Dominguez Halpern pointed out that the boys who suffered the most from the lack of presence were
the boys from second to fifth grade of primary school
, who last year had only one week of classes.
"For this reason, this year we are also going to focus on them."
"We are going to continue with a hybrid model because there are subjects that are going to be followed in virtuality. But the boys, through projects, especially experimentation, are
going to come to school to work,
" added the rector.
The Minister of Education, Nicolás Trotta, said that "we are convinced that what our children need is to be present."
Photo: Andrés D'Elía
"One thing is the protocol and another thing is a school. The school is alive, and there is a dynamic that has to do with
the responsibility that each one develops in this space,
which is social," Dominguez Halpern closed.
For her part, Daniela Estecho, director of the Madre Sofia Bunge School in Ituzaingó, also describes the problems that must be solved in order to open classrooms and develop effective teaching.
"For this year, already with the experience of 2020, we have designed a program for all levels, with synchronous and asynchronous platforms, with fixed and predetermined bubbles, and with
face-to-face assistance three times a week, five hours per shift
. The platforms Synchronous are the virtual classes that are given by Zoom and the asynchronous ones are those subjects or contents that are sent by mail and that the students later have to develop at home and then send it back for evaluation ".
He clarified that those who do not go to school
will have classes
.
"The boys will have classes every day. If they do not go to school, they will have the virtual class. The presence will be five hours and the virtuality, three. We also have
a system of alternation per week
. That is, group A who had three face-to-face classes the first week, will have two the following week, since group B will have three face-to-face classes that second week ".
Estecho admitted that organizing classes, in this context of a pandemic, is
a "titanic task"
and assured that "this year is a new challenge for the educational community."
Schools seek to establish security protocols and staggered egress to reduce the risk of coronavirus infections.
Photo: Télam
Regarding the contents of this year, the director assured that "the total of the curriculum is guaranteed" and regarding the qualifications, Estecho said that "the evaluation is
processual and comprehensive
. The quantum grades condition the students. At school we are to that the student learns, beyond the mark that he can get in an exam ".
Silvia Fernandez, director of the José Hernandez de Merlo School, recognized that they have
many challenges to put the protocol into practice
.
"This year we have the advantage of the experience of 2020. However, it is very difficult to plan because we have, not only the context of the pandemic, but also a personnel problem, since we
do not know how many teachers we will have
to start the classes in person ".
Fernández said that his school will adopt a
weekly presence
system
.
"One group will come all week, three hours a day, every day. While the other group will receive classes virtually. Then, in the second week, it will be the other way around, and so on throughout the year."
He clarified that it is very important that students see
exactly the same content
, on the same day, in person and virtually, to give
continuity to the pedagogy
.
"The children in the classrooms and at home will receive the same content, the same day, the same time. Because, otherwise, learning is delayed a lot, because one group would have to wait a week to catch up with the other in the content".
Regarding the contents, Fernandez said that "the objective is to
give priority nuclei
, which are the issues that cannot be stopped. Taking into account that this year will not be very different from 2020, we are going to dedicate ourselves to guys
learn the essentials
".
The issue of schedules is another problem that educational institutions must solve carefully.
"We have little income, and to prevent people from gathering at the door, we decided to
take shifts of three hours
. If not, the educational day would be very long, due to the staggered exit and entry schedules."
The director also pointed out that it is very important that "both the children and the parents understand that this year we are going to evaluate as if it were a normal year, because if we don't do it,
the students relax too much and don't study
."
Fernández assured that the rubric system will be maintained, although he added that
this method brings problems
.
"By putting a letter and not a number, what we are evaluating of the student
is something general, an attempt
. This, last year, caused problems for graduates, because they need an average to have a high school diploma, and with the rubric this cannot be done. With which, last year's graduates
still do not have high school degrees
. It is a problem that the jurisdictional educational authorities have not yet solved. "
DD
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