Life in the 21st century: skills for success
The economic and social backgrounds of young Mexicans have determined their educational outcomes and life prospects over the past two decades (UNESCO 2015). With this in mind, we have begun to question what learning model is best for the 21st century and what skills and competencies are required of students in underserved communities in order to thrive in a world that is continually changing.
As individuals, everything we do has an impact on others. Whether it be decisions made at home, at school, or by governments, we are all a part of a system. We must therefore identify the skills we develop to deal with a world of constant change, and recognize that our role as decision-makers has an impact on the regional, national, and international levels. We refer to them as 21st Century Skills because they enable us to interact, grow professionally and personally, impact and meet the challenges of today.
As an organization, we believe it is important to place an emphasis on not just the knowledge, but also the skills of the students taught in schools. The leadership program adds necessary skills that will enhance formal education, and we provide them to our students to help them thrive in the 21st century.
Enseña por México (EpM) aims to stop the severe crisis of inequality by developing leadership in the educational sector to deal with systemic problems that limit children's opportunities. Through this, we have been able to build a broad, diverse, and inclusive movement that works to ensure all children and youth have access to an education that ensures their full development. Leaders committed to social justice are recruited to teach in underserved communities, developing social-emotional and academic skills through contextualized learning experiences including other teachers, families, and community members. Teacher-leaders in this program are known as Profesionales de Enseña por Mexico (PEMs) and sign up for a leadership program that includes a Master's degree in Education, taught by one of Mexico’s most prestigous universities, that helps them understand the causes of inequity that hold their students back. During their two-year classroom commitment and transformative experience, EpM offers PEMs continuing training, mentoring, and support based on highly recognized methodologies such as Learning One to One (L1to1), Intelligence Development through Art, Project Amplify and Conscious Leadership, to ensure that while they are living in the communities and when they become alumni, they can continue to make a positive impact. EpM provides learning and professional opportunities for alumni to strengthen their support network and advocacy for social justice.
Our efforts towards solving current problems require periodic evaluations so that we can make decisions based on evidence and gain a better understanding of the context in which we will be collaborating for the next two years. The Research, Evaluation and Data area of Enseña por México leads the evaluation mechanism of the program and has as its objective to generate and manage information that promotes reflection, learning, and decision-making in the different areas of the organization in order to strengthen implementation, demonstrate the organization's impact, and result in systemic change. Based on what the evidence shows and aligned with our priorities, we encourage fellows to decide the follow-up strategies for the type of teaching for students. In order to promote a data culture, fellows receive customized support from a Leadership and Learning Coordinator who provides continuous feedback on their strategy in the classroom and in the community they serve.
In 2019 we created a 21 Century Skills initiative that could benefit communities around the country providing a transdisciplinary approach to learning, where academic concepts are combined with the realities of communities, in order to question and inquire about local, global and cultural issues, and with this begin to form new models that allow students to understand and explain their environment. This initiative was strenghten during the pandemic - as students apply a scientific approach, integrate technologies as work tools, use their creativity and ingenuity to solve problems, and apply their mathematical reasoning, they make connections between school, community, work, and the global enterprise that enables the development of STEM literacy and with it the ability to compete in the 21st century economy. In a conscious way, they become capable of appreciating and constructing different perspectives and worldviews; to generate proposals for the benefit of the collective and the sustainable development of our world; thus we also ensure the fulfillment of our mission as a Program and ensure that "One day all girls, boys and young people in Mexico have an education that allows them to develop their full potential”. We are committed to this approach and the 21 skills that we develop with it, allowing us to pay not only to the fulfillment of the 4th objective of sustainable development of the UN but to our vision as an organization. Since it empowers both PEM and our students to interact with our environment in a different way; by questioning and inquiring about local, global and cultural issues, and with this begin to form new models that allow them to understand and explain this acquisition of knowledge about their environment.
Objectives
With the specific project we propose here, we aim to reduce the educational gap among young people in Quintana Roo and Nuevo León by supporting the development of 21st century skills through:
Development of communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity skills.
Building solid foundations for the development of cognitive and social-emotional skills in students.
Strengthen a social movement with organizations and educational communities that support the improvement of educational quality through solutions or projects co-created with students, parents, teachers, and schools.
Innovation, Processes and Technology
21st century skills
Social and emotional learning are essential components of this new approach to comprehensive education and student development. The process will allow them to manage their emotions well, achieve personal and collective goals, keep healthy relationships, and make healthy decisions. As a result, different socio-emotional skills were studied, which has allowed us to promote and measure some key socio-emotional skills for the comprehensive development of students. This has allowed us to make significant progress in both academics and social: self-control, self-efficacy, growth mindset, social awareness, and community engagement.
Learning one-to-one learning system.
As part of this methodology, the fellows in the classroom are disrupting and working on students' socioemotional skills in a variety of ways. The learning environments and experiences, as well as class assignments, provide students with an integral experience, where they not only learn curriculum content, but also coexist with one another, be autonomous, know themselves, and set goals.
Hybrid and virtual learning.
In order for the tools to be useful in rural and urban contexts, the fellows have adapted their methods and tools for interacting with and following up with the students according to the context. The increased use of technology has helped them maintain interest and contact with students since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Examples include:
Classes through Whatsapp, since many communities with high levels of vulnerability and limited resources couldn't connect to a class on platforms like Zoom.
School guides are adapted for delivery through Whatsapp, Drive, and Classroom.
Tiktok instructions, activities, and challenges.
Short video clips
Capsules of audio with exercises, reflections, and tasks
Recruitment and Selection Process:
An integrated platform, Salesforce, provides a unified view of all departments of an organization, including marketing, sales, customer service, and e-commerce, in one place. The Recruitment and Selection area utilizes the Salesforce platform to have an efficient and organized operation mechanism for the following processes:
Gathering, storing, and managing contact information along with the profile of candidates who apply to become fellows each year.
Follow-up and advancement of candidates during their application and selection process for the Leadership and Education Program.
Evaluation of the various stages of the candidate selection process.
Communicating with candidates about the results of the various stages of the selection process.
Maintaining databases containing relevant information about the candidates and their selection process for analysis and interpretation of the results of the evaluation of the profiles and the operational processes carried out by the area.
Storage of profiles of Enseña por México professionals, participants of our Leadership and Education Program.
Research Process Evaluation and Data
Enseña por México has designed or adapted instruments and processes to assess student outcomes and gather stakeholders' feedback so as to make evidence-based decisions at all levels: individuals, classrooms, schools and organizations. Here we briefly describe the most important ones:
Processes and instruments:
Students’ learning participation and connectivity
Census data collected from teachers
Internal design
Students’ academic achievement
Students’ pre and post academic tests
Teacher design based on Enseña por México Guidelines
Emotions, Stress and Socioemotional Skills Assessment
Student self-reported questionnaire
Adapted from Children's Daily Stress Inventory (Inventario Infantil de Estresores Cotidiano, IIEC) and CORE Districts Socioemotional Survey.
21st Century Skills assessment
Teacher assessment of students’ skills
Created based on Batelle for Kids’ Framework for 21st Century Learning
Teaching effectiveness
Students’ perceptions about teacher instructional practice
Adapted from Tripod’s 7 Cs of Effective Teaching
Feedback survey from PEMs
PEMs’ perceptions of the Enseña por México Program
Internal design
Feedback survey from School Principals
Principals’ perceptions of the Enseña por México Program
Internal design
Career trajectories and feedback survey from Alumni
Alumni’s self-reported questionnaire
Internal design
Technologies:
QuestionPro: Online survey platform
Google Sheets: Data collection templates and data management
Google Scripts: Automated data collection
RStudio: Data analysis
SPSS: Data analysis
Power BI: Data visualization
Our target students belong to highly vulnerable communities, with a high educational gap and belonging to groups of migrant families. As a result of constant mobility, they have either lost whole school years or parts of them, shifting the grades corresponding to their age, and ultimately, they no longer have access to formal education. Using 21st century skills, students will combine the realities of their communities to question and inquire about local, global, and cultural issues. By learning new models, students will be able to understand and explain the acquisition of knowledge about their environment and, at the same time, they will take an active part in the decisions and actions to achieve their expectations and goals.
As Students apply a variety of problem-solving approaches, integrate technology as a work tool, utilize creativity and ingenuity, and apply critical thinking and make connections between school, community, and work, as well as develop the skills required to compete in the world in which they live and the new economy.
Through the elimination of the traditional boundaries that separate the various disciplines and seeing them from a transversal perspective, students will be able to apply the skills and knowledge they have learned in a real, relevant and rigorous way, helping them to develop 21st century skills.
Beneficiaries
1,368 students: 468 in Quintana Roo and 900 in Nuevo León
22 fellows: 7 in Quintana Roo and 15 in Nuevo León.
2,052 people including teachers, directors and parents: 702 in Quintana Roo and 1,350 in Nuevo León.
# schools: # in Quintana Roo and 15 in Nuevo León
The PEMs we recruit are selected by a process that guarantees that they have a strong commitment to the community. Approximately 70% of our candidates are from the same communities or neighboring communities with which they previously worked, which means they are familiar with the educational needs in their community, they know the context, and they want to grow professionally and support the educational needs of their communities through total immersion and field experience.
Furthermore, we conduct censuses and surveys of students, teachers, managers, and parents during a specific period in order to get objective data. There are then spaces that allow us to discuss the results from a general perspective, we encourage open dialogues to listen to different opinions, and we encourage reflective and constructive dialogues that contribute to finding new strategies that allow self-observation. As well, we create expectations for improvement in the community through a dynamic we call "Regional Vision" in which all the actors interested in contributing listen to each other and make suggestions for long-term, systemic change.
It is important to mention that we collaborate with public institutions that provide formal education in the country and through the leaders of these institutions we collect important information.
This year we have the support of more than 220 fellows nationally, impacting more than 170 schools in 10 states of Mexico and receiving more than 1,300 applications to the Leadership Program to become a fellow.
As a result of the vision that the fellows develop and the interactions that they have with the community, they are capable of suggesting and even co-creating projects for the betterment of the community. Eventually, they hope these projects continue and grow into other communities as they invite parents, teachers and students to join in creating installed capacities.
- Facilitate meaningful social-emotional learning among underserved young people.
- Scale
The main objective is to strengthen the educational ecosystem through the support of fellows, who will provide communities with an innovative perspective to face the challenges of the 21st century. Furthermore, we aim to strengthen socio-emotional, cognitive, critical thinking, communication, innovation, creativity, conflict resolution, and teamwork skills. Using horizontal and respectful interactions with teachers, families, and students in neglected educational communities. Our goal is to develop local leaders who are committed to their communities.
- Product / Service Distribution (e.g. expanding client base)
The Enseña por México Leadership and Education Program aims to overcome educational inequality and inequity in Mexico in the most vulnerable contexts. For this, it is essential to have professionals who not only know about education, but who are also experts in other scientific and social fields, who have a solid academic base that allows them to share their knowledge in a meaningful and contextualized way, considering the audience and the context.
The fellows are committed to developing 21st century skills in students that add to the academic skills they are already learning through the school curriculum. Students will identify that they are part of a system and that every action and decision they make as individuals have an impact on other people. Due to the above, it will be important that we develop in them the skills to face a world in constant change, recognize their role as decision makers has an impact at a regional, national and international level, interact, develop on a personal and professional level, impact and facing the challenges in the 21st century.
Being an issue that concerns us all, as an organization it challenges us to offer both professionals dedicated to education and external people; a practice in which our and our students are prepared for different realities. For this reason, understanding our realities and bearing in mind our vision in Enseña por México, we work with six skills to respond to the new needs that arise from these changes at the regional, national and international levels. These skills are taken from the "21st Century Learning Framework" (Batelle for Kids, 2019) and are grouped into three axes: creativity and innovation, critical thinking and problem solving, and communication and collaboration.
In five years, we want to make sure that Enseña por México has scaled its impact to most of the states in Mexico, we are currently in 10 of the 32 Mexican states. We want to bring quality education to students who live in even the most remote parts of the country.
The grant and the support network that we can receive from MIT SOLVE would allow us to achieve our goals of scaling the impact of Enseña por México by creating more learning experiences and bringing more educational tools to communities that today do not develop leadership skills to face current problems. Being a partner of MIT SOLVE would strengthen the credibility of the organization to seek additional funds and collaboration with more educational organizations in order to be closer to achieving our maximum goal: that one day all Mexicans have access to an education that allow them to develop their full potential.
In Enseña por México we designed or adapted instruments and processes to assess student outcomes and gather stakeholders’ feedback in order to make evidence-based decisions at all levels: individual students, classrooms, schools and organization. Here we briefly describe the most important ones:
Processes and instruments:
Students’ learning participation and connectivity
Census data collected from teachers
Internal design
Students’ academic achievement
Students’ pre and post academic tests
Teacher design based on Enseña por México Guidelines
Emotions, Stress and Socioemotional Skills Assessment
Student self-reported questionnaire
Adapted from Children's Daily Stress Inventory (Inventario Infantil de Estresores Cotidiano, IIEC) and CORE Districts Socioemotional Survey.
21st Century Skills assessment
Teacher assessment of students’ skills
Created based on Batelle for Kids’ Framework for 21st Century Learning
Teaching effectiveness
Students’ perceptions about teacher instructional practice
Adapted from Tripod’s 7 Cs of Effective Teaching
Feedback survey from PEMs
PEMs’ perceptions of the Enseña por México Program
Internal design
Feedback survey from School Principals
Principals’ perceptions of the Enseña por México Program
Internal design
Career trajectories and feedback survey from Alumni
Alumni’s self-reported questionnaire
Internal design
Technologies:
QuestionPro: Online survey platform
Google Sheets: Data collection templates and data management
Google Scripts: Automated data collection
RStudio: Data analysis
SPSS: Data analysis
Power BI: Data visualization
All our projects start from our Theory of Change: we aim to improve the educational system from the personal transformation of each individual we impact, through the classroom and the student community, teachers and their families. So also in the social sphere and public policies, expanding our network of collaborators and Alumni to be a Movement that works for quality education. A great benefit of this project is that there are local actors promoting change and with whom we are already collaborating. This will allow the PEM to get involved from the knowledge of the context and have the tools and techniques for academic strengthening and development of socio-emotional skills, both in students and teachers. Thus, a multiplier effect will arise thanks to the involvement of parents and the transfer of skills from students to individuals in their own community.
- Hybrid and virtual learning.
The fellows have adapted the way and the tools with which they interact and follow up with the students according to the context. Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, the use of technologies that helped them maintain interest and contact with students has increased. Some of these strategies were:
-Classes through whatsapp, since in many communities with high levels of vulnerability and lack of economic resources it was not possible for them to connect to a class on platforms such as Zoom.
-Adaptation of school guides to send through Whatsapp, Drive and the educational server Classroom.
-Instructions, activities and challenges on Tiktok.
-Short videos
-Audio capsules with activities, reflections and tasks
Recruitment and Selection Process:
Salesforce is a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform that provides all departments in an organization, including marketing, sales, customer service, and e-commerce, with a unified view of their customers in one place. integrated platform.
Within the Recruitment and Selection area, we make use of the Salesforce platform, with the purpose of having an efficient and organized operation mechanism for the purpose of the following implemented processes:
Collection, storage and management of contact information with the profile of candidates applying to our calls to become fellows each year.
Implementation of the follow-up and advancement of candidates during their application and selection process for the Leadership and Education Program.
Evaluation of the different stages of the candidate selection process.
Establishment of communication with candidates for notification of results of the different stages of the selection process.
Management of databases with relevant information on the candidates and their selection process for analysis and interpretation of the results of the evaluations of the profiles and the operational processes implemented by the area.
Information storage of profiles of Enseña por México Professionals, participants of the Leadership and Education Program.
Research Process Evaluation and Data
In Enseña por México we designed or adapted instruments and processes to assess student outcomes and gather stakeholders’ feedback in order to make evidence-based decisions at all levels: individual students, classrooms, schools and organization. Here we briefly describe the most important ones:
Processes and instruments:
Students’ learning participation and connectivity
Census data collected from teachers
Internal design
Students’ academic achievement
Students’ pre and post academic tests
Teacher design based on Enseña por México Guidelines
Emotions, Stress and Socioemotional Skills Assessment
Student self-reported questionnaire
Adapted from Children's Daily Stress Inventory (Inventario Infantil de Estresores Cotidiano, IIEC) and CORE Districts Socioemotional Survey.
21st Century Skills assessment
Teacher assessment of students’ skills
Created based on Batelle for Kids’ Framework for 21st Century Learning
Teaching effectiveness
Students’ perceptions about teacher instructional practice
Adapted from Tripod’s 7 Cs of Effective Teaching
Feedback survey from PEMs
PEMs’ perceptions of the Enseña por México Program
Internal design
Feedback survey from School Principals
Principals’ perceptions of the Enseña por México Program
Internal design
Career trajectories and feedback survey from Alumni
Alumni’s self-reported questionnaire
Internal design
Technologies:
QuestionPro: Online survey platform
Google Sheets: Data collection templates and data management
Google Scripts: Automated data collection
RStudio: Data analysis
SPSS: Data analysis
Power BI: Data visualization
- A new business model or process that relies on technology to be successful
- Audiovisual Media
- Crowd Sourced Service / Social Networks
- Software and Mobile Applications
- 4. Quality Education
- Mexico
- Mexico
- Nonprofit
Diversity is expressed from our Institutional Vision:
“Consolidate a broad, diverse and inclusive movement of leading agents of change in Mexico, so that all girls, boys and young people have access to an education that guarantees them to develop their maximum potential regardless of their origin.”
We also have an Equity and Gender Inclusion Committee that constantly carries out activities to train and sensitize the Enseña por México team of collaborators and our fellows.
Enseña por México
Enseña por México is a Movement that attracts the best professional talent, which is committed to solving one of the country's main problems: educational inequity.
We form a network of strategic allies and creative professionals with a transformational leadership profile, called Enseña por México Professionals (fellows), committed to the country in directly impacting the development of early childhood and in the academic and social sphere, within and outside the classrooms of elementary, middle and high school.
At Enseña por México we promote sustainable, comprehensive, and systemic change through the intervention of our fellows and collaboration with public, private, and civil society agents. We are convinced that small changes in the classroom can lead to a collective transformation, this through 3 axes of transformation:
Personal transformation.
Educational Transformation.
Social transformation.
Leadership and Education Program
It is a 2-year training experience in Leadership and Education made up of three elements:
Educational incidence:
Collaboration in educational institutions of early childhood, elementary, middle and high school. The fellow teaches classes, collaborates with teachers, parents, gets involved with the educational community and generates impact projects in the community.
Professionalization:
Master in Leadership and Education in collaboration with one of the most prestigious universities in Mexico, TecMilenio. The fellow studies through a virtual platform for professional development.
Professional development:
We promote the professionalization of the PEM through training and continuous support by Enseña por México and its allies. The fellow has access to training, accompaniment by a Leadership and Learning Coordinator, regional, national and international meetings, workshops, co-investigations, feedback and collaborative learning design. At the end of the Leadership Program, 82% of the Alumni continue to work in jobs related to education, with a strong preparation and social commitment.
Beneficiaries
The fellows are Mexican graduates, that is, professionals from various areas, with a strong sense of social contribution, perseverance, commitment and critical thinking. Capable of demonstrating a high level of excellence, all fellows are characterized by having a profile of high social commitment and experience in situations in which they have shown strong leadership.
95% of the fellows are the first generation in their families to acquire university studies and we try to ensure that 70% come from the same communities in which we collaborate.
The fellows join teaching classes for two years at a public school or center where there is a high educational gap, as well as vulnerable contexts due to socioeconomic issues, violence and gender, among others. So the same children, young people, teachers and parents of the students are also part of our target audience.
- Individual consumers or stakeholders (B2C)
At Enseña por México we have a Development Team made up of professionals in strategic regions throughout the country who dedicate 100% of their work to generating alliances to guarantee the sustainability of the projects.
For this project, through the support of various national and international actors interested in the development of educational projects in Mexico, we have formed a network of strong alliances that continue to expand to ensure the sustainability of the project. Two of the main actors interested in carrying out these activities and that provide us with official authorization are the educational agencies of the government of Quintana Roo and Nuevo León, and in collaboration with them, the following allies: Caterpillar, Meta, Ternium, Nortecapital and the Tecnológico de Monterrey among others.
Costo Total del Proyecto
$3,806,000.00
Nombre de la institución
% de financiamiento
Caterpillar
25
Ternium
25
Conalep
23
W. K. Bowes Foundation
20
CEMIX
7
TOTAL
100
