Teaching and Extension Bonding: Experience of the Universidad Abierta para Adultos, Dominican Republic

Abstract

The University as a social institution has three substantive functions: teaching, research and extension. These pillars allow articulating the academic and institutional work to achieve the completion of the philosophy that justifies its reason for being. In the case of the Open University for Adults, in addition to the three previous functions, management is also considered, which is conceived as the set of actions developed by academic and administrative staff to guarantee the quality of educational processes.

Despite the declaration of substantive functions as an inherent part, the practices that support the University model represent a great challenge to develop specific actions that give account for the articulation between teaching and extension.

Based on this concern, a plan has been conceived to promote this duality from the teaching practice. It is of great interest for academics to conceive activities that allow merging the substantive functions of University work through the planning and implementation of teaching and learning strategies.

From this motivation arises the proposal to embrace teaching and extension in a good didactic practice during the development of the subject Professional Ethics of Teachers, taken by the participants of the degree in Education. The objective was direct to share UAPAs experience about social bonding and community commitment with the participation of the university community.