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Educational Excellence

Garcia wants fellow educators to become aware of certain behaviors toward
students that might cause high levels of anxiety that could lead to poor learning
outcomes. This has been a reality for students in Puerto Rico as well as for any
student in the virtual learning process. Her five simple suggestions are to
• show humanity;
• be interested in students’ interests;
• celebrate the little things;
• allow students to express their opinions; and
• use a variety of methods to evaluate their performance.
At the end of her video, Garcia explained that students who had high levels of
anxiety at the beginning of the school year performed much better academically by
the end of the year after she implemented these simple strategies.

Echevarria

The culmination of the series of videos was presented by Dr. Camille
Echevarría, professor of English at a university in Carolina, Puerto Rico. She
has carried out diverse multidisciplinary studies and has
offered workshops on methodologies for the virtual teaching
modality. Her motivation is to embrace the opportunity
to change educators’ perspectives of traditional education
to the present. COVID-19 changed teaching practices
suddenly: In one week, the traditional educational community
was transformed into an online and remote community.
This unpredictable movement had an emotional effect
on professors and students and influenced classroom
management. As expected, online and remote teaching are
here to stay. Communication styles, class participation,
assignments, class exercises, meetings, and interactions in general now depend on a
computer, a tablet, a mobile phone, a camera, and/or a microphone. For this reason,
Echevarría presented in her video the advantages educators have today in educating
students, as well as the influence that motivation has in online and remote teaching
and the learning process. Online and remote education are the new reality in which
professors and students are engaged actively in the learning process. She ended her
presentation by citing the words of Paulo Freire, “Whoever teaches learns in the act
of teaching, and whoever learns teaches in the act of learning.”

Summary
The closing ideas of DKG Puerto Rico’s educational project were to share these
experiences and open the discussion for future initiatives of developing workshops
designed to assist teachers immersed in virtual teaching. Even if in-person
education is resumed for the 2021–2022 academic year, online and remote learning
are here to stay. Let us embrace the benefit of hybrid, remote, and online teaching
and learning experiences. Puerto Rico State Organization is more than eager to
share the experiences of Puerto Rican educators.

Dr. Evelyn Lugo-Morales, a member of Delta Chapter in Puerto Rico State Organization, where she is immediate past
president, is a member of the International Educational Excellence Committee. elugomorales@gmail.com

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