Addressing the Quality of Teacher Preparation in Ecuador
November 2013
UC Davis School of Education Professor Steven Athanases presented his research on mentoring new teachers in a plenary address at a recent international conference in Quito, Ecuador. The conference, titled “Quality Education as a Generator of Change,” was sponsored by Ecuador’s Ministry of Education and the Flemish Association for Development, Cooperation and Technical Assistance (Belgium).
Athanases, whose presentation was titled “Mentoring New Teachers: Focus on Challenging Content, Diverse Learners, and Larger Contexts of Learning,” also participated in an international forum of teacher educators and a series of working groups to provide feedback on curriculum for a new Master’s degree focused on preparation of teacher educators.
In the future, Athanases will work with educational leaders in Ecuador on curriculum development for a new Universidad Nacional de Educación with a focus on teacher education. The effort is part of a larger push to elevate the quality of education for all students in Ecuador, where graduation rates are low and inequities are particularly great for indigenous people in the rural areas of the Andes.
