[RE]LEARN 2020 - The Learning Innovation Festival

The presentation will provide an overall analysis of why improving the quality of the most vulnerable schools in the LAC Region requires a systemic perspective and a paradigm shift, from transmission of knowledge to comprehension and social construction of knowledge.

It will describe how Escuela Nueva, a local innovation, became a national policy in Colombia and has inspired educational reforms worldwide. EN transforms the teacher centered conventional mode of education into child centered participatory self-paced and cooperative learning and a new role of the teacher as facilitator and mentor. It will describe its main objectives, strategies, adaptations to other contexts, results and evaluations, which demonstrate better cognitive and non-cognitive results in Escuela Nueva schools compared to conventional ones. It is a proven solution to improve quality education, enhances equity , instills peaceful democratic behaviors and promotes twenty first century skills.

It will also talk about developments since then, including the way we are adapting the model to the conditions imposed by the Covid emergency, specially, where there is no connectivity in remote rural schools of Colombia and how we adapted Escuela Nueva to student´s homes and also the Escuela Nueva Learning Circles, an adaptation of the model for displaced and migrant populations in emergencies and in urban contexts as a viable solution for these vulnerable populations.

It will also touch on new developments, including how we are adapting some strategies of the EN model to the conditions imposed by the Covid emergency, particularly to support teachers with resources, tools and guidance on how to continue the educational process of their students now from home. A key tool for this purpose has been Renueva, our virtual campus that brings together a robust community of practice of teachers and practitioners.

Finally, the presentation will also analyze how innovations are very vulnerable to political and administrative changes and why it is crucial to work with governments to have impact and coverage and why it is necessary also to have public private partnerships and the role of civil society for ensuring quality and sustainability.