1. GENERIC COMPETENCES AND
SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICAL
EDUCATION.
PREPARING A NEW LEARNING
ENVIRONMENT
FLORENCE ITALY, OCTOBER 2013
DR. JUAN FIDEL ZORRILLA ALCALA
IISUE, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México,
Av. Universidad 3000, UNAM, C.U. D.F. 04510 Mexico

2. General education context in Mexico
Mexican post elementary education has had to cope with an evergrowing number of students finishing Upper Secondary
Education (USE) since the middle of the 20th Century.
In 1950, Higher Education (HE) in Mexico had a modest student
population of 40,000. Today it has 3.5 million students.
Faculty also grew at the same pace and, historically, throughout the
Education System, hiring teachers had a prevalence over training
them.
As a consequence, HE institutions have been facing a student
population with inadequate levels of academic performance in
reading, writing, Mathematics and Science.
This situation is widely acknowledged and institutions have enacted
different programs promoting higher pay and bonuses for having
PHD degrees and higher quality academic productivity.

3. On the other hand, the development of pedagogical content
knowledge (PCK) has not been considered a priority by
institutional policy. Improvements in General
Competences(GC) like literacy, Mathematics and problem
solving are unsurprisingly tardy and unsystematic. Teaching
and learning continue to emphasize retaining abstract
knowledge, definitions, procedures and algorithms.
In this paper it is argued that Science and Mathematics teaching
in HE can be substantially enhanced by means of educational
research and development support focusing on GC.
Support consists of expert collaboration, with faculty, for the
development of PCK regarding the promotion of two GC in
their courses: i) literacy and problem solving, and ii)
Mathematics and problem solving.

4. Phase I consisted of a survey reviewing all academic activities
undertaken so as to promote GC throughout the institution.
Results showed over 250 different activities including regular
courses, with little in common.
The survey suggested three strategies:
i) A commission to propose an indicative definition of the GC in
view of an incoherent dispersal of activities grouped as GC.
The commission submitted its proposal in V/2013.
II) To align the design of the entrance examination.
iii) To organize, at a small scale, an education research and
development program to promote a teaching culture
committed to PCK, innovative academic assessment,
collegiate work and the development of GC.

5. An invitation was issued on Jan 2013, open to all faculty undertaking
teaching during the Spring Term and willing to work with GC.
Surprisingly, in terms of discipline, out of 42 teachers admitted, only
8 belong to the Social Sciences or the Design and Architecture
Divisions. The rest are from Mathematics, Engineering, Physics,
Chemistry, Biology and Medicine.
Applicants had to submit a letter of intention describing why they
expected GC to contribute to improving teaching and learning
practice in their courses.
A six hour long workshop was set up to transform the intention into a
schematized proposal of intervention for their own courses.
42 teachers wrote a schematized but detailed proposal of intervention
and 36 successfully worked and concluded the program.
Experts visited twice participating teachers, revising and commenting
their interventions and the writing of partial reports. Partial results
were be presented in a poster session organized for all participants.
The report’s final draft was revised twice. 36 concluded the project
successfully with the submittal of their final report.

6. There is a clear contrast between the views expressed by participants
initially in their letters of intent with what they reported on line, in a
questionnaire. Initially, the general opinion emphasized mostly
students’ problems.
On the letters of intent, out of 25 considerations for participating, 23
alluded to difficulties or academic inabilities students had vis a vis:
Working, applying or interpreting mathematical expressions;
Describing graphs, understanding the determination of tendencies and
the interpretation of the occurrence of minima, maxima and
derivatives;
The integration and application of content knowledge:
The discussion of their argument persuasively in any given text;
The development of the high level of concentration on intellectual and
academic work that is required of them;
To infer conclusions and plausible hypothesis either from the literature
or from research;
To elaborate original ideas and to discuss them convincingly.

7. As the project unfolded, these tenets began to change. In the visits
paid to participants, once the Spring term had begun, in the five
campi, most teachers – many of whom have the highest academic
standing and have a long academic experience stretching over
twenty or more years - were very surprised to admit that under the
new perspective offered by participation in the project their own
routines and methods showed inconsistencies and inefficiencies.

When participants were asked on line with which statement they
agreed more. One option stated that priority should be given to
evaluate a course in terms of achieving the objectives stated by the
program. The other phrase said that evaluation should take into
account the course’s program for identifying the direction of work
with students, but the goals to be achieved in the course should also
consider emergent objectives that appear during the course, given a
certain student population. 21% agreed with the first statement and
79% with the second.

8. 


In a question in the on line questionnaire, teachers were asked
whether they modified their objectives in the light of interaction with
students. 79% accepted that they modified their objectives, while
21% did not modify them and confined themselves to the program.
It is clear that a very high proportion of teachers now consciously
pay attention in their teaching to what happens with students. That
is a different situation from the one prevailing in the letters of
intention.
Again, in one further question, they were asked to choose which
phrase expressed better their present opinion. The first option
stated that generic competences were primordially a prerequisite
with which students should comply before they entered university.
The second option set forth that generic competences should be
developed all along university studies as part of the general
educational process of future professionals. Again the same 79%
agree more with the second phrase, while 21% do so, with the first.

9. Another result that can be contemplated is that in a small but
influential sector of faculty a consciousness recognition of the need
for academic collaboration between Science and Mathematics, on the
one hand, with experts in education, didactics and pedagogical
content knowledge. This acceptance seemed only a year ago,
improbable if not unrealistic.
One feature that must not be overlooked is that the methodology used
for working with teachers is in itself a model for promoting the
development of academic writing and problem solving with students
as well.
But, beyond these important local results, there are also relevant
implications for academic and teaching work in institutional
environments where education standards and the possession of
indispensable generic competences is below desired levels.

10. 
The lesson is perhaps that faculty can hardly afford to be paralysed
by poor outcomes, which often result in depressive moods and
isolation. Faculty has to change and to move on. That can be done,
but institutional support is required. Otherwise the lack of
communication that is typical of poor teaching and learning
situations often leads to academic frustration and student attrition.
In educational terms, this amounts to a never-ending, educational
blank-mindedness which results in wasting a significant proportion
of teachers and students time.
In terms of the experience here reported, there is a way out: to
integrate individual teaching by means of institutionally supported
academic research and development projects, which produce
stimulating and exciting professional results. Under these
conditions, teachers can experience working to the rhythm of
dialogic collegiate work and can also envisage the means of
furthering both their own competency in writing academically
valuable texts as well as furthering two main generic competences.


11. Juan Fidel Zorrilla Alcalá
fpertinente@yahoo.com.mx