Child-centered learning and a new role for teachers

One of the most powerful ways to get to know the Escuela Nueva (EN) model is to open an EN learning guide. It’s a textbook for students, a guide for the teacher, and a curriculum planner — all in one. That’s a lifeline for resource-strapped teachers, who use it as a blueprint to facilitate self-paced, self-directed, cooperative learning.

That holistic approach is a natural development of the EN model, which has four focus areas: curriculum design, teacher and administrator training, community integration, and education consultation.

EN curricula are designed to be socially and culturally relevant, flexible, and collaborative — so students can advance at their own pace, and fully absorb learning. Crucially, FEN trains teachers using the same methodology they’ll use with their students — encouraging them to work in small groups and at their own pace, with a skilled facilitator. The goal is to shift educators from transmitting facts to being managers of learning and socialization. Administrative roles shift in turn — from strict supervision to providing advice and support to teachers.

FEN works with stakeholders across the education system: children, teachers, administrators, families, and communities. They’re directly engaged in decision-making around the local school system through participation in various governance committees. And the organization partners with public school systems, embedding child-centered, collaborative curricula into resource-limited rural regions through policy reform efforts and program development.

Yidan Prize funding helped spread Escuela Nueva to more districts, and expand a virtual campus

Rather than launching or expanding a single project, the FEN team split funds across activities to embed the EN model in more areas, expand training, and deliver more learning guides.

For one part of their activities, the team incentivized Colombia’s local government, private sector, and education authorities to implement the EN model in rural schools by matching funds of up to 30% of the total cost of the intervention.

They also created and updated learning materials and curricula for children and teachers, finalizing modules in six academic areas: language, math, science, social studies, ethics, and technology.

Finally, they invested in strengthening Renueva: a virtual campus that serves as both a remote teacher training hub and community networking resource. Though this launched before the pandemic, it’s become even more important and active since.