Evaluation of Competencies in the Initial Training of Science Teachers in Uruguay

A Globalizing Interdisciplinary End-of-Course Experience

Abstract

Uruguay proposes a competency curriculum for the initial training of educators in its new study plan. It promotes a formative evaluation that prioritizes interdisciplinary educational actions of the Curricular Units that comprise it, in favor of the development of certain competencies. In the educational experience that we present, the teaching work carried out in the specific training path of the Biological Sciences teachers corresponding to the first year of the degree was integrated, with a formative and summative evaluation at the end of the courses, common to two curricular units. The evaluation device involved generating a didactic and digital product by the teachers in training, which was analyzed with the rubric instrument. The methodology used to evaluate the educational experience is mixed. In the first phase, the learning results obtained in the rubric applied in the formative and summative evaluation were compared; In a second phase, a study of the applied evaluation device was carried out, through a global evaluation survey applied to students at the end of the courses. The results show that the structuring concepts taught throughout the year in the two curricular units of the undergraduate training were used by the teachers in training to carry out a comparison of species of selected organisms, according to the instructions given to them. Different aspects in the instrumental and attitudinal dimensions of the proposed competencies could be evidenced in the formative evaluation and in the summative evaluation at the end of the course. There is a positive assessment from the students regarding the way that was used to comprehensively evaluate two specific curricular units of the degree.