Claudia Urrea is the Senior Associate Director for pK-12 at the MIT Abdul Latif Jameel World Education Lab (J-WEL). Claudia was born in Colombia, where she received an undergraduate degree in Computer Science from EAFIT University. In 1994, she joined MIT as a visiting research engineer at the Center for Educational Computing Initiatives and later as one of the last doctoral students of Seymour Papert. Claudia received her master’s degree in Educational Media and Technology from Boston University, and her doctorate degree from the MIT Media Laboratory.
Before joining the MIT Office of Open Learning, Claudia Urrea worked at the Interamerican Development Bank as a consultant in the education sector, and at One Laptop Per Child organization as Director of Learning. During the last six years, she has worked in different initiatives such as The Institute-wide Task Force on the Future of MIT Education, The MIT Online Education Policy Initiative, and the MIT pK-12 Action Group. In addition, Dr. Urrea founded a STEAM camp, which introduces MIT’s learning approach to middle schools students and teachers in Hong Kong.
When and how did you become interested in Education and Learning?
First, let me talk about learning. I have the best memories of my life working with my father on projects and learning about many different topics, tools and techniques. I often talk about my experience as a child and the impact it has had in my professional and personal life. Together with my father I worked not only on science projects, but all kinds of projects like building kites, fixing things at home, and even painting. I learned not only about many concrete topics and tools, but I developed very specific skills around learning, mentoring, risk-taking, failure and resilience. As a result, I did a lot of teaching and tutoring during High School with my classmates and younger students in my school.
Later in college, I started working at a research lab where I entered formally the field of education. At this lab, we did work on education and technology. I participated in large scale projects, some of which brought me to MIT as a researcher and later as a Ph.D. student. During that time, I was able to apply my background as a computer scientist, but more importantly my passion for applied learning, collaboration and project-building.
Describe your work with J-WEL and the effect it has on pK-12 education?
Let me talk about my work and its implications for pK-12 education. As a senior associate director of pK-12 at J-WEL, my work includes the following: 1) cultivate and nurture a community of J-WEL members from different countries around the world and also members of the MIT community. The goal is to approach opportunities and challenges in education in a collaborative way and do much more than the individuals/groups are doing as we leverage everyone’s talent and resources; 2) recruit a diverse group of members that bring significant priorities and assets to the community. Those assets can be important challenges and programs, funds, locations where programs can be tested and studied, and capacity to bring scale to some of the efforts; and 3) bring awareness among the community of the most significant priorities and opportunities where we can collectively make a deference.
I also lead my own projects, which give the opportunity to work with the community across different groups at MIT. One of those projects is the STEAM Camps, which we have been doing for 3 years now. Through these Camps, we engage members of the MIT community who are interested in sharing their work and ideas with K-12 students by developing new activities and programming (faculty, students and staff) and MIT students who work with the participating campers and local educators as the facilitators of the camp.
What do you consider the biggest challenge facing educators today?
The world faces a global shortage of teachers, with a particular need for younger teachers: teachers under 30 account for only 13% of teachers in primary education, 11% in lower secondary and 8% in upper secondary on average across OECD countries in 2017. A different report by UNESCO from 2019 talks about challenges with the recruitment of qualified individuals to the teaching profession, which is true across nearly every nation. New and veteran teachers often have insufficient relevant training, feeling especially underprepared in STEM fields, emerging technologies, new findings in learning science, and contemporary pedagogical approaches and also methodologies.
In addition to challenges with fundamental issues such as salaries and adequate classroom conditions, teachers need support to teach diverse classrooms and training to provide psycho-social support for students and to ensure their own well-being. We know teachers’ increasing demands and challenges are related to curriculum overload, larger and diverse classrooms, limited resources and support among other things.
During the last J-WEL Week, we asked the community of members to help us identify the pressing priorities in global education. 80% of the groups described challenges with educators’ well-being and teacher preparation. We are taking those inputs seriously and supporting work at MIT that addresses those challenges.
What do you think will have the biggest impact on education over the next decade?
Any program and effort to bring opportunities to those outside the educational system are extremely important. Those are urgencies we are looking to address through a few programs we are advancing at MIT Abdul Latif Jameel World Education Lab in the MENA region. There are 262 million children outside schools arournd the world, and 68.5 million displaced people, most of them are children. Solutions that address those challenges in creative ways have the potential to make an enormous difference.
I am also excited about the opportunity to co-design programs that address some of the challenges that teachers are facing today. An important development in this space is the incorporation of learning science research into teacher pedagogy, for example the embrace of blended learning, inquiry-based pedagogies, and promotion of growth mindset. Such training needs to build teachers’ capacity for meeting the needs of all students by giving teachers the tools to reflect on how their mindsets and behaviors promote (or hinder) access and equity in the classroom. This involves training in culturally responsive pedagogy responsive to the diversity of learners in a global classroom.
An additional perspective we are bringing to our work has to do with current conversation and research on the future of jobs. We believe in an education that prepares students for current demands and jobs, that prepares them to work in sectors that are being redefined in light of new technologies, and that prepares them to invent new sectors and jobs. We are currently working on a new program that has the potential to bring those perspectives by helping students develop the skills and knowledge they need to create better futures.
What is your favorite thing about working at MIT?
I love what I do at MIT. I have the opportunity to learn and create new programs and opportunities for transformation in education and I get to do that by collaboration with colleagues from MIT and other countries around the world. I am inspired and encouraged by their work and inventiveness and their positive response to the opportunities we continue to image and design together through the MIT Abdul Latif Jameel World Education Lab.