Rector Carlos Castillo-Chávez was the Keynote Speaker at the congress and is also visiting other institutions

On Thursday, August 10th, 2017, Carlos Castillo-Chavez, rector of Yachay Tech University, was in Guayaquil as the keynote speaker at the 8th International Congress “Building a Teaching Community for a Successful Future” of COPEI, along side three other Yachay Tech professors: Alyssa Wolfe, Kevin Crane and Hamilton Quezada, form the English Language Program. They all discussed teaching methods and technological improvements for education. Carlos was also in the city as a part of the Yachay Tech Aprende program and visited two education institutions to talk about the importance of science mentoring and, with the help of a student, about how is the university experience at Yachay Tech.

The congress, organized by COPEI, aimed to promote and share with the community innovations in teaching processes and methods that contribute to the improvement of the country’s education system. In the congress, Alyssa Wolfe’s talk listed three useful educational technologies for Interactive Learning and Kevin Crane contributed to the subject by explaining how Google can be used for collaborative learning. Hamilton Quezada, on the other hand, discussed techniques to improve student attention in the classroom.

Carlos was invited as keynote speaker due to his important career path as mentor and educator. Carlos’s talk aimed the role of the teaching community members to influence and generate meaningful changes in education and was held on the first day of the Congress, after the opening ceremony, at 5 PM. The event was held from August 10th to 12th, in three different venues: Plaza Rodolfo Baquerizo Moreno, FIEC-ESPOL Auditorium and Unidad Educativa Politécnico. Participants attended to 9 plenaries, 61 workshops, 38 speakers from 9 different nationalities and an online plenary.