Critical Teaching Competencies

A teaching competency is a set of professional skills that enables practical teaching situations to be appropriately resolved.

TeachersPro is designed so teachers can learn taking their needs and concerns into consideration. This unique system works through Challenges, where the user chooses what best meets their needs. The Platform then personalises the training to offer the best course adapted to the teacher’s knowledge.

Each Challenge activates one of the 16 competencies and some of the 140+ teaching skills identified in TeachersPro, which cover educational practice.

Professional teaching skill: mastering the specific action in the classroom

The skill represents the specific professional know-how of the teaching profession, therefore, it implies knowing how to plan, deliver, motivate, assess, tutor, coordinate, reflect, research, etc. It assumes specific procedural knowledge (steps to achieve something) that implies action, in other words, knowing how to do something and having practical knowledge to be able to implement it successfully in the classroom. Skills can be considered sub-competencies, the result of specific experimentation and training.

Competency: Final result of the teaching action

The competency essentially consists of knowing how to suitably (or successfully) solve situations in the professional teaching life and comprises the use of skills (know-how), but also implies other dimensions such as knowledge and attitudes (knowing how to be), as well as other subjective elements, such as intentionality, values, professional ethics, etc. Therefore, the competency provides a comprehensive response despite involving many different elements. Unlike skill, competency is what makes it possible to know how to perform tasks in unique and diverse situations. Therefore, competency is shown by responding to specific, complex situations of the teaching profession in context.

Typical features of the professional teaching competency:

  1. It integrates knowledge (facts and concepts), skills and attitudes.
  2. It covers diverse and unique situations and problems.
  3. It is an effective or appropriate response.
  4. In a certain context.
  5. It responds comprehensively although it occurs in complex situations in which diverse variables intervene and strategic intervention is necessary.

The 16 TeachersPro Competencies:

Planning

Delivery

Assessment

Leadership

SETTING OBJECTIVES

Formulate competency-based objectives taking into account the intended learning purposes and available conditions for their attainment.

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LEARNING MANAGEMENT

Identify, prioritise and reformulate the learning components each student must work on, in other words, the knowledge, skills, attitudes and competencies, taking the objectives into account, as well as the purposes of the intended learning.

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TIMING

Organise the timing of the education process with scaled criteria and each student’s possibilities, from the intended objectives and required learning components.

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CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES

Apply suitable educational psychology criteria to the design and selection of learning activities.

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LEARNING PROCESS

Design the learning process based on the nature of its components and their competency-based interaction.

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INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS

Foster appropriate interpersonal relationships in the classroom to encourage the different intended learning.

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SOCIAL ORGANISATION OF THE CLASSROOM

Implement the different methods of social organisation of the classroom in activities for large groups, fixed and flexible heterogeneous teams, teams by level and individual work, for suitable management of the class and to encourage the development of different competency-based learning.

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TIME MANAGEMENT

Manage the time required for the teaching and learning activities depending on the real needs and intended learning.

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LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS

Use different kinds of educational spaces, organising their conditions and the way in which students position themselves in them, to facilitate the intended learning.

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TEACHING RESOURCES

Use the different technological and teaching resources as supports to promote the creation of each student’s learning.

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CONTEXTUALISATION OF LEARNING

Work on the different learnings from a globalising approach and in accordance with the context to facilitate their competency-based application.

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CENTRE ACTIVITIES

Get involved in the general activities of the centre as a way to create effective learning experiences, both inside and outside the classroom, and in this way contribute to attaining the intended objectives.

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MONITORING AND TUTORING

Guide each student’s personalised training process through systematic strategies to have suitable knowledge of their evolution and of the challenges that each can tackle.

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ASSESSMENT

Define the assessment criteria and characteristics to favour learning and know the level of compliance of the intended competency-based objectives.

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PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Continuously improve one’s own teaching practice through competencies for reflective practice, research-action, cooperative work and self-assessment.

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TEACHING ORGANISATION

Adapt the teaching practice to the unique characteristics of the centre and its surroundings, using available resources as efficiently as possible.

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Visit the Challenges