INTEGRATING DESIGN-BASED LEARNING METHODOLOGIES IN RURAL EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENTS IN CHILE: A POSITIVE COLLABORATIVE MODEL AT THE HEAD OF THE ACTION!

The work presents the results of an experience carried out within the framework of the research project “Development and small-scale validation of a didactic model to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of teaching-learning processes in rural schools in Chile”, financed by the government. The objective is to integrate design-based learning methodologies (DBL), that is based on the integration of design thinking and the design process into the classroom on the primary school level. The general objective is teachers and students to develop skills to create solutions to the real-life challenges faced by people in their lives. Challenges such as food waste, clean water, and climate change. The methodology includes three stages: teacher training, which explains concepts and exercises the COMPASS methodology devised by INDEX (Denmark) and adapted to the rural context of application; in a second stage, a practical exercise is carried out with the children in the classroom; and, thirdly, the results of the work are presented to the community for its implementation. The Compass methodology is designed to help teachers and their students navigate, focus and stay on track in the design to improve life process by offering a clear structure of its various levels and elements. At the same time, it encourages curiosity, engagement, creativity and innovative thinking. The Compass acts as the structure of the design to improve life education material (textbooks, appendixes, others) and supports the overarching teaching goals with concrete actions, methods, and techniques. The work's complexity often requires collaboration and specialized roles, providing students with the opportunity to become experts in a particular area. Design projects require students to establish goals and constraints, generate ideas, and create prototypes through storyboarding or other representational practices.

In rural schools in Chile, there are often multi-grade classes, characterized by integrated educational spaces where students grouped by age. Methodological strategies become difficult when the subject is accumulative and request baseline to be understood. Design methodologies based on design can contribute to cross and balanced learning, favoring the teacher's action as the classroom leader. The integration of these aspects is relevant since it can be a way of conceiving the world and the development of your own community. In conclusion, positive benefits of the design-based learning approach have been observed, including student-based learning where students (often) identify their project's needs, develop their own ideas, and engage in a larger range of thinking than with the traditional scripted inquiry model. The school must inspire, transform and add value to educational systems and their communities. The integration of design methods in rural education environments provides an opportunity to promote the active valorization of the environment, spaces for collaborative construction where each individual is a fundamental part of the configuration of common knowledge, as well as delivering creative solutions, putting at the head a positive collaborative model necessary to contribute to community welfare. Results are presented in the farthest school of Los Andes Mountain Range in the Bío-Bío region of Chile, called Monte Léon, where the school is the center of value creation for the community.