Our branch campus in Guayaquil held training sessions for professors before starting the new semester. Juan Cardenas, UPS president, Angela Flores, academic vice president, Raul Alvarez, vice president of our branch campus in Guayaquil, Marcelo Farfan, general coordinator of Salesian Institutions of Higher Education, Pablo Farfan, director of the distance and virtual education department, and over 200 professors attended the inauguration of the training sessions via zoom. 

 

During the meetings, there were three conferences in order to reflect on educational actions in the current context.

 

- "Salesian University Institutions, the challenges of Salesian Higher Education in the current context due to Covid-19: encourage, accompany, recreate", by Father Marcelo Farfán.

 

- "Statistics of the use of the Virtual Learning Environments in the health emergency", by Pablo Farfán, who provided the attendees with statistical data on the use of Virtual Cooperative Learning Environments during last semester 56.

 

- LALA Project (Learning Analytics Latin America), by Ángela Flores, who explained that the objective of the project is to improve the quality, efficiency and relevance of education, developing capacities to create, adapt, implement and adopt learning analytics tools that allow the improvement of university administration

 

The sessions will be held until October 30, in two parts: the first part covers the methodology and evaluation in this emerging modality, preparation of learning guides and updating in the use and management of tools of the new virtual learning platform, version 3.0.

 

The second part includes a customer service workshop and two teacher update courses: the first seeks to evaluate and restructure the methodological didactics, and the second on voice modulation, which includes vocalization and diction, techniques and preparation of the voice to master the art of public speaking.

 

At the end of the event, Father Juan Cárdenas stated: "Each one of us, from our professional profiles, is qualified from reason and knowledge, but in the context of postmodernity, structures do not work, it is time for people to understand that technologies and connectivity is the means to reach persons; I invite you to honor our calling as teachers, to recreate our educational and teaching task and to activate that transcendent aspect of faith and hope, and to continue encouraging students' life projects."