Abstract:

The use of ICTs in the classroom, as an element that enhances and facilitates educational strategies to promote active learning in students, remains a pending task for institutions. The introduction of ICT into the educational process has turned out to be a much more complex process than was optimistically considered years ago. Today we know that the mere introduction of technology into the classroom is not enough to promote significant changes in learning, just as we also know that it is not enough for teachers to have an adequate mastery of technology to modify their teaching practice.

The generation of new learning situations requires the clear identification of the educational problems to be solved, the willingness to create new learning strategies and scenarios on the part of the teacher and the school, and the technologies that facilitate these new proposals. It is along these lines that the project "The Classroom of the Future" has been focused on. The project has been implemented in different educational institutions, and this paper describes the experience of implementing this project in a high school in Mexico.

The objectives of this project were to generate a space for exploration and teaching innovation in that school; and a program to support teachers to encourage them to reflect on their teaching practice, to bring about a change in their teaching strategies. The activities were developed throughout 2019 and 2020. Fifteen teachers participated in 2019 and 18 in 2020, working with more than 1000 students in these years.

The training program was very well received by the teachers, and the students indicated a very positive level of acceptance of the proposals developed by the teachers. This paper will describe the most important results of this experience based on the questionnaires applied to the participants (teachers and students).
Some of the most relevant findings from the implementation of this program are:
- The application of the active methodologies proposed in the accompaniment program has allowed more active participation of the students.
- Teachers reflect on what new dynamics they can apply in classrooms to address conceptual deficiencies in their students.
- The communication processes among students and between the teacher and the students are enriched, allowing for better interaction and benefiting the development of critical thinking and, consequently, better appropriation of concepts.
- 2020 was a very complicated year for the teachers due to their inexperience in managing their distance learning courses. This project came to support teachers in the application of active methodologies and relevant ICT tools, so they were able to move forward and obtain good results with their students.

Keywords:

Collaborative learning, teacher training program, use of ICT.