Articles

The integrative teaching task as a necessity to promote a developer learning process

0000-0002-7319-2301Kendri Rodríguez Molina^{1  *}  , 0000-0003-3234-7175Zuleiny Meneses Martin¹  , 0000-0003-1334-2635Yulay Velasco Martin¹ 

¹Universidad de Ciego de Ávila Máximo Gómez Báez, Cuba.

ABSTRACT

The work proposes to solve the insufficiencies in the methodological procedure for the elaboration of the integrative teaching task, with the aim of systematizing the theoretical references of the teaching task with an integrative character, as a way that facilitates the work of the teacher aimed at the development of the cognitive ability of the student. Methods such as historical-logical, inductive-deductive, analytical-synthetic and observation were used, which allowed the initial verification of the problem to provide treatment. Its implementation has contributed to perfect the elaboration of the teaching task with an integrative character, favoring the teaching-learning process.

Key words: Teaching task; Integrative character; Cognitive ability

Introduction

In Cuba, the purpose of higher education is to train professionals with personal qualities, culture and teaching skills that allow them to perform responsibly in society.

The integration of knowledge in the development of the teaching-learning process is fundamental for the formation of skills. In the case of Higher Education it goes beyond this, due to the need for the formation of a competent professional required by the present time.

In the Model of the Professional for the Study Plan "E" of the Bachelor of Education Pedagogy-Psychology, it is declared as an object of work the direction of the educational and teaching-learning process of pedagogical and psychological subjects in the training of educators, the psycho-pedagogical counseling to managers and teachers, educational research in the contexts where it develops the work of educational guidance to students, family members and the community (^{MES, 2016}, p.5).

Attending to this requirement, the subjects that are part of the curriculum of the training of this professional are emphasized, which must ensure that the student systematizes the content of the different subjects and from these, cognitive independence is stimulated achieving a developmental learning, this will only be possible if from the classroom teachers plan the integrative teaching tasks in terms of educational diversity to achieve developmental learning.

The purpose of the integrative teaching task is to develop competencies, conceived as a dynamic and integrated process of knowledge, skills, attitudes, values, which should be induced and developed in the teaching process, and their degree of appropriation should be evaluated.

In view of the current challenges in university education, it has been determined that evaluations should have an integrating character and therefore it is up to the teachers to conceive from the preparation of subjects integrating teaching tasks so that from the class itself the student is prepared for success in tasks of the work and research component in order to achieve successful exercises of the profession.

The experience of the authors as professors of the career, in the diagnosis applied to students, the observation of the teaching-learning process, the results of the analysis carried out at the different levels of the methodological work show insufficiencies in the methodological procedure for the elaboration of the teaching task with an integrating character.

The teaching staff in the last courses has been reinforced with new professors graduated from the career, but their experience in higher education is still insufficient, which is why they have difficulties in conceiving teaching tasks with an integrating character.

In the research process, the following methods were used: historical-logical, inductive-deductive, analytical-synthetic and observation. Their application contributed as a way to know and solve the problem under analysis, determining the current situation and projecting solutions, taking into account the particularities of the career and the students. It also favored the analysis of the ways of thinking and acting in the future work in the student centers. The bibliographic review provided the theoretical and methodological foundations that support the teaching task, in order to draw guidelines as to what is documented and what is proposed, taking into account the pedagogical experience acquired.

Several authors have conceived that the teaching task is the cell of the teaching-learning process. Among them are ^{Álvarez de Zayas (1999}); ^{Álvarez, (2004)}; ^{Andreu (2005)}. Their assessments point to:

• Students' mastery of concepts and procedures.

• The need to find and apply new knowledge and methods.

• The transformation of the student's personality.

In the task entrusted by the teacher, each student reflects his or her needs, motivations and interests, so that an assimilated knowledge, a developed skill and values in formation are evidenced, making the teaching-learning process more individualized.

The objective of this work is to systematize the theoretical references on the teaching task with an integrating character, as a way to facilitate the teacher's work aimed at the development of the student's cognitive capacity.

Development

In the analysis of the pedagogical literature consulted, the definition of the teaching task has been analyzed. For his part (^{Andreu, 2005}, p.1) "considers that the teaching task is the core of the student's independent activity, acts as the starting point of cognitive activity and as a specific pedagogical means of organizing and directing this activity. For this reason it determines to a great extent the quality of the teaching-learning process". This definition is correct when considering that the teaching task is the core of the independent activity carried out by students to consolidate the acquired knowledge and that it directly influences the teaching-learning process.

In the criterion analyzed, it is defined as: "the basic cell of the teaching-learning process, the action of the teacher and the students within the process, in order to achieve an elementary objective". (^{Álvarez, 1999}, p.115)

Álvarez de Zayas states that the teaching task: "(...) is the action of the teacher and the students within the process, which is carried out in certain pedagogical circumstances, in order to achieve an objective (...) to solve the problem posed to be studied by the teacher". (^{Álvarez, 1999}, p. 178)

We are in agreement with the criteria exposed by the mentioned authors because in a certain way, they coincide in establishing the relationship between the task and the teaching-learning process, with this the student in training is educated, instructed and developed for the future professional work.

The integrative teaching task has also been investigated by multiple teams of professionals. It is considered pertinent to assume: "the integrative teaching task is the task that includes the contents of the different disciplines and once they are dialectically assimilated in its cognitive structure, it enables the student to apply them in his practical activity" (^{Daudinot, 2014}). This definition covers all the essence of it, when analyzing it from its integrating character of components and factors, it contains all the elements that should characterize it.

The integrative teaching task must be conceived in a system that allows establishing relationships between the different actions and operations that promote, the conception of the activity will be decisive for the purposes to be achieved, being able to influence both the instruction, development and education of the same. The success of the above will be closely linked to the interests and motivations of the student, developing their own cognitive interests. However, in order to achieve successful and developmental learning, it is necessary to awaken or create the interest of the student and the group towards the object of study.

The student's attitude towards knowledge is linked to its significance for the student's needs and interests, an adequate professional orientation, previous experience, as well as the psychic state in which he/she is, when the student knows the usefulness of what he/she is studying, the social meaning it has, the value in itself and for itself, he/she will find meaning in the object of study, which will favor its acquisition. The motivated student, interested in the activity, will have a positive disposition for its realization, for achieving the result, for succeeding. Thus, motivation and the intellectual and volitional-emotional spheres of the personality interact, the positive disposition of each one will be linked to the others and finally to the success of the teaching-learning process.

In the process of pedagogical professional training, the system of teaching tasks designed from the different subjects should allow the achievement of the professional intentionality of the objectives when designed taking into account the performance of students in their different contexts of action and encourage the appropriation of forms and methods of work in correspondence with their professional role. It is a necessity, given the current transformations that are conceived from an integrative conception, with a holistic and transdisciplinary approach where global problems are solved.

The above leads to determine some theoretical regularities for the design of integrative teaching tasks:

• Selection of activities taking into account the components of the teaching-learning process and the problems that the integral diagnosis determined in the students.

• Assimilation of solid knowledge, skills and habits that favor the development of capacities, especially cognitive, depending to a great extent on the correct direction of the process.

• Achieving the leading and active role of the student through the ability to think independently.

• To enhance the metacognitive development of the student in training through the use of meaningful learning strategies.

• To contribute to the development of group work skills by leading the students to the penetration of the essential, respecting the criteria confronted to their own.

To allow linking the student in the solution of the tasks posed to the different socializing agencies, achieving transdisciplinarity.

• Assimilate efficient work and study methods.

• Contribute to the conscious elaboration of activities, which is demonstrated when they are able to summarize the content, make content sheets and logical schemes, elaborate concepts, expose their evaluations.

• Include content from several subjects or disciplines.

• The contents must be related to the problemical problems and competences of the professional profile.

• They are aimed at determining to what extent the students' learning is significant and how it manages to be involved in the formation of motivations, feelings, attitudes and values, enhancing the quality of new learning, that is, its solidity and duration, its possibilities of being recovered, generalized and transferred to new situations; promoting personal growth and their ability to learn how to learn.

• The conception of the task system is directed to the active participation of the student in the search and reflective analysis of knowledge, which leads to the analytical revelation of knowledge.

• The planned tasks will contain orders that will serve as a guide for the realization of the activity by triggering reproductive or reflective processes, as well as actions aimed at influencing both the search for information and the stimulation of intellectual development and the formation of points of view, judgments, and the realization of assessments by the student.

In addition, achieving the development of cognitive capacity does not imply the realization of additional activities, but requires an adequate structuring of the teaching-learning process, in order to enhance a developmental teaching, which does not deny the possibility of contributing to the development of these capacities with good complementary activities.

Although capacities depend on knowledge and skills, they are not reduced only to them; that is, they are more stable qualities of the personality that are not formed with the same speed with which knowledge is acquired, and the development of skills depends in turn on capacities. It is the teacher's task to contribute in a harmonious and planned way to the active development of capacities by designing varied, sufficient and differentiated teaching tasks that allow the student to appropriate significant learning for the full development of his personality.

The tasks encourage the student to analyze what he did, how he did it, what allowed him to succeed, where he made mistakes, how he can eliminate his mistakes, to defend his criteria in the group, to reaffirm, deepen or modify them, to self-monitor and evaluate his results and ways of acting.

Some of these tasks involve the formulation of hypotheses, requiring the student to propose possible solutions based on the analysis of the problem, which can be corroborated by practical work or a bibliographic search.

A system of integrative teaching tasks allows students to move through the levels of content assimilation:

• Familiarization: allows recognizing the knowledge and skills taught in the subject in the development of the teaching task system.

• Reproduction: it allows reproducing the assimilated knowledge system through the use of models and algorithms in the development of some activities.

• Production: stimulates students to use knowledge and skills in concrete situations that reflect the school reality, showing the assimilated knowledge in new situations.

• Creation: leads to solve new situations for which the acquired knowledge is not enough, from the solution of some problems that are presented in professional practice.

• The problemical nature of the system of integrative teaching tasks means that the student, in its solution, faces exercises that require the use of techniques and problems, which must be faced through strategies; that is, a conscious planning of the steps that can be followed and the consequences that will be derived from each of them. Techniques are automated; on the other hand, strategies must be deliberate, the product of conscious reflection. Obviously, the application of a strategy is supported by the use of previously learned techniques. What differentiates exercises from problems is not only the type of procedure used in one or the other case, but, above all, the way in which it is used.

The system of integrative teaching tasks tries to achieve an adequate balance between exercises and problems:

• Set open tasks, which admit several possible ways of solution and even several solutions, avoiding closed tasks.

• Modify the format or definition of the problems, preventing the student from identifying one form of presentation.

• Diversify the contexts in which the application of the same strategy is proposed, making the student work the same types of problems in different moments of the curriculum and with different conceptual contents.

• Present the tasks not only in an academic format, but also in daily and meaningful scenarios for the student, trying to establish connections between both types of situations.

• Inhabit the student to make his/her own decisions about the solution process, as well as to reflect on the process, granting him/her an increasing autonomy in this decision-making process.

• Encourage cooperation among students in the realization of the problems, but also encourage discussion and diverse points of view, which force to exploit the space of the problem, to confront the solutions or alternative ways of solution.

• To value especially the degree to which this solution process implies a previous planning, a reflection during the realization of the task and a self-evaluation, on the part of the student, of the process followed.

• Value the reflection and depth of the solutions reached by the students and not the speed with which they are obtained. However, encourage quick and deep solutions.

The discipline and subject collectives must guarantee an adequate methodological approach to achieve quality compliance with the professional's model, thus directing the work of the disciplines and years and taking into account the role they play in the curricular strategies, the links with other disciplines and among their subjects.

The responsibility for the conception of the integrative teaching task in university teaching corresponds to the year group, which is in charge of carrying out the methodological work in the brigades. Its structure is integrated by the key factors for the integrated work, since it groups the professors who develop the subjects of the year, the guiding professors of each group. Organized with the purpose of achieving the fulfillment with quality of the objectives of the year, propitiating the integration of the educational and instructive aspects with an interdisciplinary approach. Having as main functions:

• The conception of the educational strategy of the career in that year, favoring the integration of classes, student scientific work and labor practices with the different tasks of social, sports and cultural impact that students perform, in correspondence with the educational and instructional objectives of that year.

• The participation in the process of integral diagnosis and evaluation of the members of the brigade.

• The conduction and systematic control of the progress of the educational teaching process and of the fulfillment of the educational projects of the groups that make up the year, developing actions to eliminate the deficiencies detected and proposing the measures that allow the continuous improvement of the quality of said process.

From the year group, certain actions can be developed to design, guide and evaluate the integrative teaching task in university teaching:

• - Analysis of the results of the diagnosis.

• - Analysis of the year's objectives.

• - Presentation of the contents of the subjects and establishing relationships with the dosage of the content.

• - Determination of contents to be integrated and guiding subjects.

• - Determination of the interdisciplinary nodes.

• Planning of the system of integrating teaching tasks, taking into account the academic, research and work components.

Procedures to be taken into account for the conception of the integrative teaching task.

For design:

• Consider the results of the individual and group diagnosis.

• Derive and formulate the formative objective of the class.

• The mode of action to be assumed by the teacher and the student.

• Formulation of the teaching tasks.

1. For the orientation of the integrative teaching task:

• Discuss with the student the Guiding Basis for the task.

• What for? What? How? With what? When? Where?

1. Para el control de la tarea docente integradora:

• Observe the process and outcome of the work with the teaching task to reorient if necessary.

1. For the evaluation:

The development and execution of the designed integrative teaching task will be evaluated; the results obtained will be assessed and, if necessary, reoriented.

In order to efficiently evaluate the task system, a set of dimensions and indicators are proposed that allow the development of self-evaluation, heteroevaluation and co-evaluation of the students.

1. Content mastery for integration into the Didactics teaching process:

• Political, historical, scientific, economic, artistic and cultural information.

• Of the fundamentals of the educational process: philosophical, sociological, pedagogical, and psychological.

• Of the Master Programs.

• Of the specific contents of the subjects of their career.

• Role of Didactics in their professional performance.

1. Mastery of the theoretical and methodological content of the subject Didactics:

• The nature of Didactics as a science.

• Of the components of the teaching-learning process.

1. Materialization of the didactic foundations for the development of the professional work:

• Design and modeling of process activities.

• Direction of the teaching-learning process during the work practice.

• Interrelation of the components.

1. Application of study methods and techniques:

• Taking notes.

• Making outlines, summaries, concept maps.

• Use of audiovisual media.

• Use of information sources.

The result obtained is referenced:

• The methodological procedures proposed allow designing the teaching task with an integrating character.

• Conceiving the teaching task with an integrating character contributes to the development of the student's cognitive capacity, making the teaching-learning process a developmental one.

• It offers a mode of action to be followed for the student's performance during his work practice in the pedagogical training schools.

Conclusions

The theoretical systematization of the referents allows identifying as a deficiency that the elaboration of integrative teaching tasks received by the student in training is still insufficient.

The design and application of integrative teaching tasks require a deep study, analysis and interpretation of the programs of subjects that allow identifying the elements of the knowledge system and integrating them in the design of the integrative teaching tasks.

Including the integrative teaching task from the subjects that the student in training receives, contributes to the development of their cognitive capacity, achieving a developmental learning and an important competence in their training as education professionals.

Referencias Bibliográficas

Álvarez de Zayas, C.M. (1999). Didáctica La escuela en la vida. Pueblo y Educación.

Álvarez, M. (2004). Interdisciplinariedad: Una aproximación desde la enseñanza aprendizaje de las ciencias.Pueblo y Educación.

Andreu, N. (2015). El diseño de la tarea docente desarrolladora. La unidad entre sus exigencias y condiciones. Varela. https: //www. revistavarela.uclv.edu.cu

Daudinot, A. R. y Robert, R. E. (2014). Integración desde la tarea docente. FDeportes.com, 19(199). http://www.efdeportes.com/efd199/integracion-desde-la-tarea-docente.htm

Ministerio de Educación Superior (MES). (2016). Plan de Estudio E. Carrera Licenciatura en Educación Pedagogía-Psicología.

Received: October 08, 2021; Accepted: February 05, 2022

^*Autor por correspondencia: [e-mail]