EDUCATIONAL REFORM AND VIRTUAL TEACHER TRAINING: A CASE STUDY

In the year 2016, Ecuador activated its Program for Teacher Curricular Actualization (PTCA), a teacher professional development initiative (TPD) of the Ministry of Education, based on a Massive Online (quasi) Open Course (MOOC) focused on informing teachers on the new National Curriculum. The present study has as its objective to characterize the PTCA as a case study, which can serve to strengthen future similar initiatives. Findings from the following sources were triangulated: official documents, the Virtual Learning Environment, the databases registering the implementation, results and perceptions of teachers, interviews of authorities and focus groups with teachers. We found that the program was successful because of its coverage (187.376 teachers) and elevated rate of approval (66.7%). With this coverage size, the present study is the largest available in the SCOPUS database and the program has more than six times the approval rate of the international average. The success factors that this study suggests contributed to the result are: the clarity and pertinence of the MOOC objective for the target teachers (getting to know the new National Curriculum), the existence of opportunities for active learning, learning communities, and approval leading to a valid professional certification (in this case, by the Ministry of Education). Finally, we point out some lessons and challenges for future comparable initiatives.