The Support Educational Commitee Participation in the Pedagogical Approach of an Educational Integration

Educational services are essential to social and economical development of people, mainly to the progress of all sectors of society. Establishing actions that can promote the participation of various social groups is essential to improve their quality of life and building more respectful and fair human rights without any discrimination or exclusion. In recent years, the Costa Rican education system has undergone significant changes due to the pedagogical approach of inclusive education in which students with educational needs may require different support and specialized resources for training and development. For this, the Basic Educational Division of the Center for Teaching and Research in Education, generated a concern of investigating the participation of the Committee of Educational Support in the process of educational integration, thus, determine the functions performed in the educational context, under the rules of the 7600 Equal Opportunity Act for people with disabilities, which is the entity that corresponds to regulate access to education by identifying the support required for students with educational needs and, advice and trains, administrative staff in schools both public and private in the country. In addition, there is also a concern for exploring the role of the Special Education teacher for this Committee, as well as learning the perceptions of teachers and parents about the functions performed by the committee.

Competencias en educación: Ideas para el diseño curricular desde la deliberación práctica y crítica, basada en el desarrollo humano y la transformación social

Los sistemas educativos, en América Latina y en el mundo entero, están siendo llamados a dar respuesta a las exigencias de profesionales altamente formados, que respondan a los conocimientos y habilidades emergentes exigidas por los avances científicos y tecnológicos. Ante esas peticiones de la realidad económica y productiva, las competencias se han convertido en el estandarte para que los sistemas educativos planteen sus propuestas curriculares. En estas se manifiesta la ampliación de los contenidos al aprender funciones o tareas con base en adaptaciones de otros contextos, desde la experticia y sin estudios profundos de la realidad de las fuentes curriculares. En este artículo se plantea la importancia de considerar que un proyecto educativo basado en competencias profesionales se debe visualizar como un proceso de formación de la persona, de manera integral. En el análisis de esa proposición se discute el abordaje de las competencias desde la educación, el cual ha pretendido relacionar la teoría y la práctica, acercando los contenidos académicos al hacer en un puesto de trabajo, en divergencia con la necesidad de razonar las competencias en educación como el medio para integrar el conocimiento y la experiencia. No se trata solo de resolver tareas específicas en un futuro puesto de trabajo, sino también de la búsqueda de soluciones de los problemas en los diferentes ámbitos de la vida. Para el logro de esa visión integradora de la educación, se proponen algunas ideas para diseñar proyectos curriculares por competencias desde la tradición práctica deliberativa y crítica, con una concepción curricular humanista y de transformación social.

¿Por qué es esencial discutir acerca del liderazgo en la gestión escolar?

The purpose of this article is to analyze some aspects of vital importance to educational organizations: Educational Leadership. Leadership is a big issue that has being an interest for many authors. The term gives a connotation of images that include powerful, dynamic and intelligent people. The majority of leadership analysis recognizes the fact that it can occur in all the organizations. This article suggests a brief explanation of what leadership means, and it explains two theories that have been developed and have an impact in the educational system: the transactional theory and the transformational theory. Therefore, this article mentions some basic elements about transformational leadership in a school´s principal. Finally, there is an explanation about the vision of an educational organization and how this one links its leadership with the educational organizations in general.

Andragogy as a Knowledge Driving Discipline in Higher Education

This paper exposes the diachronic (historical overview) of Andragogy (or Adult Education) and its introduction as a discipline in the context of university education. Based on the andragogical principles of the adult thought process and the work experience, this study sets out Adult Education as an education option to be implemented in higher education, in Costa Rica, to develop cognitive and meta-cognitive competencies in the university students, in the different academic areas simultaneously, by reproducing the Socratic maieutics, which is structured within the Kolb’s experiential learning cycle.