CuenTeach, Think tank of Latin Teachers of Teach for all

Teachers, on OECD's average, reported that one of the greatest impact form of continuing education is the based on peers to peers. However, in continuing education for teachers, 59% attended courses and seminars, while only 49% had training based on peer learning and observation (TALIS, 2018. Colombia). This same challenge is similar around Latin America. So, there is a lack of reflection about pedagogical practices for educational transformation.

In CuenTeach, we use digital storytelling to promote a collaborative network of teachers. It means using digital stories in podcast format to share reflections and learnings of current and different educational challenges of socioeconomically vulnerable schools around Latin America. Therefore, individual reflections and learnings become collective, transforming the traditional school qualitatively and day by day.

Our entrepreneurship was created by teachers who are part of an international network called Teach for all. In CuenTeach we were teachers who lived the experience of teaching in disadvantaged centers in Latin American countries, where has been demonstrated that teachers  are not better prepared or have more experience than those who work in centers with less difficulties. Our program consist of teacher training among two years, in a coaching or observation plan, or in an informal dialogue with other teachers about how to improve our teaching practice, however, is not enough be part of this kind of network to be a teacher who inspire their students. 

According with PISA, on average, in the 18 countries and economies that surveyed teachers, 57% of teachers of non-scientific subjects reported that they had participated in a network of teachers created specifically for permanent teacher training, 62% in a formal plan tutoring or peer observation at the center level, and 95% in an informal dialogue with colleagues on how to improve their teaching activity. This, can show us that teachers want to learn from each other, support them in different techniques day by day in their active learning.

Teachers around Latin America are the beneficiaries of our platform, since 2018 we have been increasing the number of teachers visiting our platform with an actual mensual access of almost 100, also 44 publications from 9 different countries and 4 podcast with more than 200 listeners in less than 3 months. Now we are moving our content to a new website and this have had an excellent impact in our readers and listeners, who have thank us for our work and cheer us up to keep doing it, due to we are creating content and reflections that are not easily to find in digital 

The solution that CuenTeach create is simple, in our website www.cuenteach.com we upload a blog and a podcast called “historias y reflexiones de profes para profes” where teachers are being motivated to share their experiences and learnings in a digital formats available on mobile platforms like Ivoox, Spotify and Google Podcast. Their peers are listening to each other while they do others teacher tasks, like, fulfill easy school papers or cook.

Our listeners and readers are teachers between 23 and 49 years old in Latin America, which represents a percentage more than 56% of teachers in participating countries according with TALIS, 2013.This new digital entertainment is getting more attention around our countries and we believe is a strong way to belong a teachers network full of investigation and reflections about traditional educational system.

We consider CuenTeach as innovative solution because of 4 reasons. First,  integrate technology; second, create a special digital stotytelling; third systematize processes of educational reflections and fourth connect teachers with similar interests in educational challenges.

The requirement of build over what has been build is taking space and teachers are the best to share what is being doing now and what is lacking. The process to integrate TIC into these educational system reflections is getting attention. Also our storytelling style seek expand inspiring stories all across Latin America.

The main outcome is strengthen systematization processes of educational stories and reflections. CuenTeach has collaborators specialized in educational innovation and storytelling that are building the best way to systematize these kind of innovations. Last will allow the region start to follow and work together to solve common educational challenges.

One of our desired changes (outcomes) is to connect teachers with the same interest in educational challenge. CuenTeach has collaborators in journalism and social communication that are structuring a handbook to seek and promote these kind of interest to attract more teacher in order to match them and structure lines of action about each educational challenge. In medium term we will develop an algorithm that will identify this itself and create focal groups of reflection.

1. the current number of people you’re serving = 100 teachers who teach in vulnerable places in Latin America

2. the number you’ll be serving in one year = 500 teachers who teach in vulnerable places in Latin America

3. the number you’ll be serving in five years = 3000 teachers who teach in vulnerable places in Latin America

We are looking for solutions that will have a transformational impact on millions of lives. Use this space as an opportunity to talk about your goals and how they will help you impact more people, whether through your organization or other approaches to scale such as replication.

Our goal in five years is to impact in educational politics thanks to the reflections of teachers that day by day are transforming the life of their students. They are the basic that are creating the change with their strategies inside the classroom. Most of them we do not know, but if we start to seek this kind of transformational and inspirational stories and keep them in a bank of transformational stories we will allow base to support arguments that allow good changes in the educational politics.

Also, but not less important, CuenTeach want to structure the next year a space where teachers can access to good reflections that inspire them to keep in the pedagogical career and to keep being leaders of the education.

Right now a financial and technical  barriers are obstacles to the good development of our project.

Rural and not connected areas in Latin America do not allow to all teachers to listen to our platform. Also, the lack of time and incentives do not allow that teachers want to share their reflections in our platform.

Nevertheless, there is an increase of technological advances and we are being connected day by day more easily. Also we are developing an incentives structure that will motivate teachers to share their reflections and stories in CuenTeach

We are creating alliances with differents ONG around Latin America. These are part of Teach for all network and their support is allowing us to increase our beneficiaries, also the financiation and the technological barriers.

We offer to this ONG to seek and promote the educational stories that their teachers are doing across Latin America, but their focus can not be in the stories searching and promotion. That is why we develop this structure where different network collaborators will help to get inspirational and challengings stories that occur every day in the classroom. This integration between, for example, between "Enseña por Colombia and Ensina Brasil with CuenTeach" will finance us as an organization that facilitate the integration of teachers and stories of reflection and inspiration.

Cristina Hernández is from Colombia, she is the co-funder and director of CuenTeach in now living in Spain. She is creating CuenTeach as an entrepreneurship in Spain and this will allow us to connect more with Spain and Europe.

This expansion also will allow us to integrate educational system of different countries and identify between teachers what are doing teachers in different context in order, not only, to share by share, but also to keep learning between us.

You can see our team here. We are 14 people working in this project in this moment.

We recently renovate out team. The 95 % of the team is women and have being teachers in the past. Also they all belong to different countries like: Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, México, Perú y Brasil.

We all part of an internacional network called Teach for all. All we were teachers in vulnerable and socioeconomic unfavorable places in Latin America, so, we know the complexity of be a teacher who works in a complex place full of violence among others problems.

Also, most of the team has studied communication, which means people focalized to expand the stories and reflections of the actual educational school system.

The last reason, but not less important is that all the team loves education and communication and when that happens, the team understand the importance of the communication force.

We are currently working with Enseña por Colombia and we are structuring who to create alliances with Enseña por Ecuador, Argentina, Brasil, México among others that are part of Teach for all organization.

Our first alliance is Enseña por Colombia. We expect after good development of our relationship we can expand our model of connection to other countries where, for sure, we will find teachers motivated that want to share their experiences and learnings.

As we mentioned before, Enseña por Colombia is our first alliance. We structure some services that CuenTeach is doing for them. We are connecting the teachers they have in Colombia with other teachers in the region. We structure campaigns of promotion of stories that allow other teachers inspirate them and co-work.

Also, in our website we have two ways to receive revenue. First donatios of teachers who are part of the network of Teach for all. Also revenues for the advertising of social entrepreneurship. They support the podcast with a small amount to CuenTeach make the advertise of the proyect or entrepreneurship. In that way we help to each other and the social network increase every time more.

The future alliances with Educational ONG's in Latin America plus the small amount asked for advertisement to a small educational or social projects and entrepreneurships, is financial CuenTeach's plan by now.

In long term the connections generated thanks to our website and future app will increase the solutions that teachers can do in their communities because these are known thanks to the advertisement CuenTeach will do for them. As we were explained before. Advertisement is a service we offer.

There are a plenty of small projects and entrepreneurships that teachers are doing and we have their contacts because of we are mapping this. So, a huge colaborative community between these projects or entrepreneurships and more alliances in the differents ONG, part of Teach for all, will allow CuenTeach