Connecting Classrooms with Online Interclass Tournaments: A Strategy to Imitate, Recombine and Innovate Teaching Practices

Roberto Araya ()
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Roberto Araya: Center for Advanced Research in Education, Institute of Education, Universidad de Chile, Santiago 8320000, Chile

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 10, 1-25

Abstract: UNESCO’s Sustainable Development Goal 4 and new curricula around the world call for a better quality of education. Among the main challenges of improving quality is increasing the integration between disciplines and improving the preparation of students for the personal and work requirements of a smarter and rapidly changing society. For that purpose, we need to design new and effective didactic strategies. However, current classrooms are isolated. They practically never connect. This hinders the exchange of ideas. It inhibits imitation and recombination, the basic blocks of cultural evolution and innovation. In this paper, we analyze four online interclass tournaments that we have implemented in the last decade. This long-term view is crucial for estimating the sustainability of new teaching strategies. These tournaments are very uncommon lessons, where entire elementary or middle school classes interconnect synchronously and play an educational game. This increased interconnectedness is only possible thanks to digital communication technology. We found that these interclass tournaments are feasible to implement in schools; that they are a promising mechanism for teaching with an increased integration of disciplines; and that they facilitate imitation, recombination, and innovation of teaching strategies. Thus, interclass tournaments could be a feasible strategy to help innovate and improve the quality of education.

Keywords: STEM education; educational technology; sustainable development goals; online inter-class tournaments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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