Competencies for remote education

Although the education sector has been one of the most affected due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it has also promoted the training of e-learning skills, effectively in teachers, a situation that represents a challenge for some people and opportunity for many others.

In the article “Habilidades que debe tener un docente e-learning”, carried out in August 2018 by FO&CO (Centro de formación y Consultoría) some of the most important skills that an online teacher must have are outlined, highlighting some aspects such as the use of collaboration tools, identification of digital teaching resources, acquire the role of coach or mentor, exchange of experiences with other tutors, among others.

That is why the practice “team competencies matrix” of Management 3.0 is an exceptional element to help to know the current panorama of teachers’ abilities, it also allows them to recognize what they want to achieve and analyze possible actions to achieve it. required. The competencies that were evaluated are:

• Management of collaborative tools
• Management and communication tools
• Theoretical and practical knowledge of the course
• Be inspiring
• Be emphatic
• Active listening
• Empathy
• Check the learning and design of the material.

The execution of the practice was carried out to a team formed by 4 instructors of upper secondary education in Mexico who are teaching classes in the online format, to know what the competencies of each instructor are and how they can improve them to teaching in general.

The practice was carried out online using the Zoom and Miro tool, through which all members participated and were able to receive comments or discuss the points that require a group approach.

I invite you to learn more about the “team competency matrix” practice on the Management 3.0 page https://management30.com/practice/competency-matrix/

The experiment is part of an initiative by the direction of the institution that aims to generate a series of innovative practices that can help increase the skills of teachers; In this dynamic, with the aforementioned competencies, each member must place the percentage for their mastery in each area.

The dynamics to execute the practice consisted of the following steps:

1. Place the number of teachers needed, and their dominance in each competence: expert level and practitioner level, of course making use of a template from the competency matrix in the Miro tool,

2. The team members determine the domain in which they consider they are by the explanation that the direction (for example, in the use of tools that they use commonly, such as Zoom and Teams).

3. Once the domain is determined by each participant according to their consideration, the corresponding level in which they are (novice, practitioner, or expert) must be placed.

4. The results obtained are evaluated and the skills achieved are determined.

5. Finally, for the skills that were not achieved, the team members share their points of view and actions that they can take to acquire the necessary knowledge or skills.

As a facilitator I learned that dynamics can categorize different skills in the team, for example, the management of collaborative tools can include Jira, Miro, Kahoot !, among others, I also learned the importance that it can represent for an institution that its collaborators have the necessary skills to be able to bring teaching to the best possible quality.

The team that participated in the practice learned what their strongest skills are, in which others they need to improve as a team and, also conclude that the practice reflects what skills they have. The members are aware of the importance of being able to cover all the desired competencies, for which they will rely on the experience and advice of the members who have a higher level of mastery in a particular competence, in this case, they could be the management of collaborative tools, checking learning and material design. The above to strengthen the team in the quality of teaching.

My next experiment with this practice will be to evaluate the team’s competencies again with more rigid criteria to obtain a score that helps me determine if they are skills at a learner, intermediate or expert level, in a quantifiable way, for which, it is likely that an evaluation is required to determine the classification of the competition.

I invite you to do this practice with a work team, the practice helps you to form a multidisciplinary team and although a trigger that triggers the practice is not decreed, I recommend you carry it out when you are forming a team or when you need to evaluate the different skills to cross knowledge with the members, this will help you not only to increase the skills but to increase the coexistence of the team and promote collaboration based on the talent of each member.