The Methodological teacher – education and qualification

A Methodological teacher must have a positive attitude to co-operation and favour teamwork and to be active in the continuance of multi professional education after qualification and graduation

Methodological teachers that work with students of all age groups must develop their education. They are responsible for planning lessons, assigning projects and grading assignments. Educational requirements for teachers depend on the prospective teacher's specialization.

There is a generally widespread consensus among researchers about some of the teaching principles about the education of methodological teachers, and it´s the facilitation of learning among students.

They must place the focus on the learner: to shift from education centered on the transmission from the professor-educator to one focused on the student (their ideas, likes, interests, needs, etc.).

They must create a learning environment that favours interactions (between educators and future teachers, among the latter, and between different types of knowledge, etc.).

In the same way, they promote the construction of knowledge through negotiation processes, which implies a degree of relativism and questioning of the common power relationships.

Rivero et al. (2011) propose four general levels of progression to methodological teachers, and different ways to involve students in the teaching-learning process. 

1. The first that he proposes is that a specific methodology is not needed to teach; in some occasions it´s better to have “intuition”. This methodology does not follow an articulated model; neither specific activities nor didactic resources are specifically formulated and the proposed teaching situations are not arranged in a logical order.
2. Other methodological teaching process must be the transmission: where the methodological logic is a subsidiary of the logic of the content that is being transmitted. The activities are situations proposed to reinforce the teaching and the resources serve to support them. The underlying obstacle is the belief that students and their ideas do not influence methodology.
3. Other model for teachers is the substitution; when the focus is on the student and not on the teacher. This teaching methodology is based on the logic of detecting the ideas of the students and their expansion and/or substitution with the correct knowledge. The underlying obstacle is the understanding that teaching is the direct cause of learning.
4. Research. This teaching methodology responds to a logic based on the investigation of relevant problems to enhance the evolution of the students' ideas. These ideas are considered the axis of the teaching-learning process.

Working in real situations or linked to practical issues and reflecting on how to manage them, allows students to put themselves in the situation and make decisions, reflecting on which are the most adequate and why. This methodology allows them to progress from their initial positions to more elaborate conceptions.