Better-trained Teachers to Invigorate Education in Latin America

Social Responsibility: Interactive online workshops provide teacher training.

The AME educational program, of the Fundación Cisneros, contributes to modernizing the knowledge and skills of educators for implementation in the classroom.

Teachers in Latin America now have available a platform for continued education without the limitations of time and place.  The Actualización de Maestros en Educación (AME) program of the Fundación Cisneros, provides this opportunity. 

Úrsula Cárdenas, a teacher at a school in Peru, sent a comment about her experience in the course conducted on HIV AIDS.

"Its data and content are greatly up-to-date, and have served to enrich our knowledge which is then transmitted to our students. The videos are very striking and poignant. It awakens interest in our students to know more about the causes and consequences of this terrible evil that is growing more every day, despite our best efforts as teachers, doctors and governments of each country.”

Through their training in workshops online, teachers improve their skills in different areas. AME also offers experience with cooperative learning strategies that facilitate the interaction between teachers from different regions.

Since 2003, over 7,000 teachers have completed the AME courses in 11 countries in the region (Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Argentina, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Chile and Panama), which has benefited over 320,000 students.

New ways of learning. "Often, teachers fall into a routine out of fear or lack of knowledge and tools. The world must change the task of teaching so that our children grow to love learning and the opportunities afforded by it.  This will allow children to become better human beings and at the same time create a better planet,” wrote Hannia Montoya, a teacher from Costa Rica, via email.

The strategy of educational learning is interactivity. Participating teachers receive the classes via the television on video, via satellite or cable systems and take part in virtual classrooms of the website of the program.  In addition, the program’s web site offers tutoring, teaching guides, discussion forums and self-evaluations.  Some special benefits of the AME program include access to AME’s management team and university instructors as well as participants across the region.

Fundación Cisneros provides funds and conducts strategic planning for the program to achieve its goals. In addition, it establishes alliances among various affiliates in the governmental sector (with national educational authorities of the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica and Peru and local), both private and academic.