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The UWI Open Campus Delivers Blended Teacher Training Programme to Cuban and Dominican Republic Professors under UNESCO-EU Transcultura Programme in Spanish

Building Resilience and Agility through Online Learning in a Pandemic

"I recalled going to Cuba a few months before the pandemic and meeting colleagues from higher education institutions. Despite my training in Spanish, I found that conversations were sometimes challenging due to my limited exposure speaking the language “a causa de la fluidez con que hablaron mis colegas”. I recognized that I needed to retool to allow for agility in similar contexts. The professors suggested that I participated in a face-to-face immersive class in one of the Cuban institutions however,the challenges being physically present in Cuba became very apparent as the pandemic unfolded. Now that Cuban professors were trained to facilitate learning online, the possibility exists for remote learning.” Anneshia Welsh, Head, Business Development Unit

Resilience building has been a critical focus of many organizations over the past two years with many training interventions developed to enable businesses to pivot to meet the challenges that arose because of requirements for physical distancing during the Covid-19 pandemic. During 2021, The UWI Open Campus was able to pivot and delivered in Spanish, a Blended Teacher Training Learning Workshop under the UNESCO-EU Transcultura Programme, funded by the European Union. The primary language of delivery at the Open Campus has been English since the campus predominantly serves 17 English-speaking territories. However, given the Transcultura Programme’s aim to “Integrate Cuba, the rest of the Caribbean and the European Union through Culture and Creativity”, the campus worked in collaboration with UNESCO to have its training content translated into Spanish to build capacity amongst Cuban and Dominican Republic professors to deliver training in a blended learning modality. As a result, the higher education institutions whose professors participated in the workshop are now able to advance their digital transformation agenda and deliver training programmes using online or blended learning modalities.

I recognized that I needed to retool to allow for agility in similar contexts.

Structure of the Programme

The objective of the workshop was “To ensure that facilitators new to blended and online course delivery have basic knowledge of efficient teaching strategies to facilitate courses using web-conferencing tools and asynchronous delivery platforms.” The workshop was designed as a self-paced training, allowing the students to read the learning materials and complete the assignments at their own pace. However, the Course Coordinator, who was bi-lingual, proposed a schedule to assist students with their progress in completing the workshop.

The Transcultura Project aims to “harness diversity and build bridges between people and cultures from different linguistic areas.” Based on Phase One, we enthusiastically note its resounding success. Forty-six participants successfully completed Phase One and received a certificate in Blended Teacher Training. Further, the members of UWI staff very enthusiastically participated in delivering non-English courses and this project served as an additional inspiration to add language packs in foreign languages, to the Campus’ Learning Exchange.

Phase Two of the Transcultura Programme aims to deliver eleven professional development courses in Spanish, English and French, to persons who are involved in the cultural and creative industries.

Applications were accepted for the following courses:

• Brand Management
• Effective Business Communication
• Effective Management and Leadership
• Entrepreneurship & New Venture Creation
• Entrepreneurship Small Business Management
• Finance for Non- Financial Managers
• Financial Monitoring and Evaluation
• Grant Proposal Writing
• Project Management
• Sales & Marketing Management
• Small Business Management

We are pleased to have received such an overwhelmingly positive response to these courses and look forward to deepening the connection with our neighbours. Although we might not all speak the same language, we share a common geographic space and the power of education is universal.

Click here for more information on the UNESCO-EU Transcultura Programme