Today, I successfully applied for a professorship in my area of expertise—Didactics and School Organization—at the Faculty of Education at the University of Murcia.
When I completed my work for the position of Associate Professor, I shared with you part of the process—it’s available in my post from September 12, 2018–. Today, that approach doesn’t make much sense to me (I can’t contribute much more, mainly due to the variety of processes and approaches in Spanish universities). However, I would like to share some reflections on how I prepared for the exam and what the document I’ve presented as my “Proyecto de Cátedra” means to me (my university’s regulations require this document). To do this, I will share with you a section of this document (which you will find here in a piecemeal fashion) that I’ve titled:
Professorship Statement and Disclaimer
“This work (referring to the project I presented to the panel who examined me) aims to be an academic reflection of what it means for me to aspire to a
university professorship in Educational Technology. Perhaps because of this, I do not intend to make a definitive theoretical or epistemic stance. This work is not meant to be ‘my legacy’ or a declaration of what I intend my research to be from now on, precisely because the mission of an academic, at least from my point of view, should be reviewed, rethought, and redirected continuously.
It is an integrated proposal with short—or medium-term research projects that will likely evolve soon, and I hope it will continue to help me evolve in my understanding of the problems around me and the educational reality in a broad sense.
In this case, I intend to take a practical approach (without implying that all research should be “useful”) and an exploratory and critical approach. Although what I present is, in fact, a short-term bet, I believe it should reflect not only my current thematic and reflective stance but also my understanding of how research in Educational Technology should be conducted and the guiding questions I ask myself daily to pursue this field.
Hence, I understand that this proposal must respond to a series of fundamental characteristics:
- Address a substantive issue that affects or pertains to fundamental questions about the impact of technology on education, where the effect on education should be the priority.
- Be coherent, meaning to seek, develop, and give space to the paths opened by the research history.
- Dare to be innovative means looking in diverse places for different things. This implies advanced technology and an awareness of the most advanced problems. It also means exploring, sometimes even without knowing if there is something on the other side.
- Be epistemically committed, generating theoretical, methodological, and educational structures that give substance to new paths we must blaze in education. The goal is to light up areas others can walk through and, if possible, turn those paths into “roads.” This means keeping an eye on all new developments, but without rushing to any trend, and ensuring that someone follows the paths we trace…
- Be socially committed to the development of the context, in this case, to the development of my institution, my classroom, but also to other institutions like mine, and of course, to public education and what it entails.
- It should be bold, meaning rigorous, but also willing to find, test, learn, and even fail or find paths that cannot be travelled.
Interdisciplinary, understanding that education is not done solely by educators, giving place in the research to professionals who educate and those who shape the technological present, but keeping clearly in mind that the education of people (subjects in the community) is the priority in that multiple perspectives. - It must be communicated, transferred, and made usable by all those who may be addressed by it, not only by other researchers. For this, it must be open and frank, and I must make an effort to disseminate it.
I know many topics are not addressed in this text, but they are always there as a backdrop and a horizon to which to aspire. To name a few, I would start by saying that the redefinition of my field of knowledge—Educational Technology—that I tackled in my Associate Professor project and later worked on thoroughly with Professors Salinas and Adell (Castañeda et al., 2020) remains a crucial factor that must be kept fresh in any analysis of this nature. The training of teachers, which will be mentioned in the more distant futures of the last part of this document, is an irreplaceable horizon of extraordinary importance but one that we cannot address in this proposal. There is also a vast area of work related to the generation of knowledge by students—yes, referring to the DCCU—which we do not address in this work but should be addressed.
Additionally, many organizational, social, political, and economic constraints condition and limit—or try to limit—my research, but they do not depend on me. However, I have been aware of these constraints for many years and have been fortunate to conduct research that influences my immediate and not-so-immediate context, so I hope to continue dealing with them as I have so far and continue to influence them for the better.”
As you can see, it is a statement of intentions that I hoped would represent me. Because if there’s one thing I believe was necessary on a day like today—when the ANECA accreditation already says you’ve jumped farther, higher, better—it was a declaration of who I am and what I believe has brought me to this point and what I will do from here on. It is not very different from what I have been, but part of the charm, I suppose, lies in what I am willing to continue to be.
