Educational innovation maps: territories and networks at the National University of Colombia

Abstract

Latin American public universities face the great challenge of increasing equity in educational opportunities for all students regardless of their ethnic origins, abilities or differences in their school histories prior to university en-
trance. The article presents a cartographic tool that allows an exploratory characterization of educational innovation at the National University of Colombia (UNAL), from an ecosystemic viewpoint, and whose visualized information contributes to activate educational innovations that favor equity in educational opportunities. The results show that innovations that experiment with curricula and pedagogical methods that integrate conceptual reflection with experiential fieldwork and in territories, from the first semesters, promoted by professors who participate in pedagogical collaboration networks, from a democratic mode of knowledge management, contribute to educational inclusion. Likewise, it is found that a key factor in the mobilization of innovations for educational equity
is the social recognition of initiatives for educational change by individuals or groups, at the national headquarters, which have not been generated from calls for proposals or with institutional resources.