Connectivity and innovation, great challenges for the hybrid model

The Covid-19 pandemic forever changed many of the traditional and basic human activities. One of them is education. The way we access knowledge, the way we interact with teachers and classmates will not be the same as we knew before 2020 since the hybrid learning model is here to stay and will be the new educational reality.

Today, in addition to traditional infrastructure and elementary services, universities must make major efforts to introduce or improve and expand the installation of new technologies and guarantee internet connectivity to ensure the quality of education and the transfer of knowledge, says the Dr. Pedro Flores Leal, recently appointed vice-rector for Institutional Operations of the Autonomous university of Occident (UAdeO), in the state of Sinaloa.

A few days after assuming such responsibility, the vice-rector Flores Leal, doctor in Administration Sciences from the National Polytechnic Institute, with a Specialty in Innovation Ecosystems and Knowledge Transfer, talks with El Economista, about what this new means in his career commissioned after having been in charge of the UAdeO Research and Graduate Directorate and outlines the challenges faced by public universities in Mexico in the post-pandemic era.

“I take up this new role thanking the invitation that Dr. Sylvia Paz Díaz Camacho, rector of our university, gave me and with great responsibility, aligned with her vision of having a high quality university, integrating technologies, hybrid learning models, ways of to better reach the knowledge, and a lot of commitment with the students, hand in hand with the teaching staff, and impact on social variables ”, he affirms.

One of the challenges facing public universities in Mexico is the insufficient budget to meet the national education agenda, says Flores Leal.

It will involve “maximizing the university’s capabilities, being efficient and seeking resources through projects and programs” to compensate for those support that are not arriving or will not arrive through the regular budget.

“But leaving aside the budgetary issue, -he points out- the most important thing is how to ensure the quality of education, give students tools, provide the context so that they can learn, that is, comply with what is defined in each educational program and guarantee that the graduation profile is fulfilled in this new educational reality that implies having a hybrid learning model ”.

“As a result of the pandemic, the internet has become a basic resource because it is necessary to implement a hybrid learning system, that is, to capitalize a lot on the internet, learning platforms, videoconferencing systems, because you cannot have large groups, if before you had face-to-face groups of 30 or 40 students, now at most it could be 15, but you must also attend to those who take their classes online without compromising the quality or the development of the student ”.

The vice-rector comments that even when the health contingency is left behind, the hybrid learning model, which combines face-to-face activities with online operations, will already be an irreversible reality in the educational ecosystem. “Today we are seeing that many students have wishes to resume face-to-face activities but have also become accustomed to doing them online”, because they have resulted in some very favorable areas for the development of students and for teachers, for example the possibility of counting with teachers from other latitudes, exchange with other universities or offer knowledge in remote communities where there is no specialized human capital.

In addition to good connectivity, another challenge faced by hybrid learning models is having equipment that allows optimal development of online activities, computers, laptops, tablets, for both teachers and students. Currently it is estimated that more than 50% of students use their cell phones to carry out their activities and there are only a few public universities in the country that have full broadband internet coverage at their campuses, it indicates. “We are close to reaching the goal of having internet in all classrooms.”

“So a lot of investment is required in technology, in fiber optics, broadband, content platforms, etc., and that is precisely where the challenge lies for many universities, because this requires considerable resources, and also requires a lot of creativity and innovation ”, he points out.

He says that it is still premature to calculate the loss or delay generated by the pandemic in terms of the fulfillment of the programmatic objectives, especially in those disciplines where face-to-face activity is essential and laboratories are required, but in others it is estimated that there was progress and there was a qualitative leap that will favor learning, the acquisition of skills and abilities in the medium term.

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Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx

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