TREES Teaching Module: What Does It Mean to Teach with Equity?
Teaching for equity is not just about incorporating new content into the classroom. It also involves reviewing one’s own teaching practices, learning from others’ experiences, and collaborating with fellow teachers to, new ways of understanding and addressing inequalities. It was under this premise that the TREE Teaching ModuleS, a training program certified by the Office of Continuing Education at the Universidad de los Andes that brings together teachers from different educational levels to rethink how equity can become a guiding principle throughout education.
Rather than simply providing educational tools, the module offers a peer-learning experience. Through a Community of Practice, teachers from schools, universities, and other educational settings exchange experiences, reflect on their own methodologies, and design curriculum proposals aimed at strengthening a critical and ethical approach to teaching about equity.
Inspired by the approach of Teaching for Understanding From Harvard University's Project Zero, the module invites you to to view teaching as a process of transformation. This is reflected in the module’s structure: the first session addresses teaching for equity; the second focuses on comprehension goals and performance; the third is dedicated to designing instructional sequences with an equity perspective; the fourth explores strategies for assessing learning from an equity perspective; and the fifth focuses on the presentation and evaluation of curriculum designs. However, the main learning does not arise solely from the content, but rather from the conversations that develop among teachers with different backgrounds, disciplines, and contexts.
The first edition brought together 21 teachers from various educational institutions. Over the course of five sessions, dialogue and feedback helped broaden the perspectives through which each participant understood their own teaching practice. To Lorena Suárez, a professor of Government and Public Policy at Los Nogales School, said that one of the module’s greatest benefits was precisely the opportunity to learn from other educational contexts.
“This space offered me multiple perspectives on education. It was very enriching to receive feedback from colleagues in other contexts. It helped me see the challenges involved in teaching to overcome inequalities and the importance of doing so among peers, with openness and dialogue.”
Her experience reflects one of the guiding principles of the module: equity is also fostered when teachers find opportunities to listen, discuss, and collectively enrich their practices. As she put it, Johanna Gómez, a professor at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana,
“Stepping away from the university environment for a bit allowed me to see other ways of teaching and other areas of knowledge. Meeting high school teachers helped me broaden my perspective, recognize other voices, and enrich my own practice through diversity.”
This diversity of perspectives was further strengthened during the second edition, held in 2026, in which the following participated: 43 teachers from different educational levels and contexts. The presence of teachers from elementary, middle, and higher education turned the workshop into a space where diverse experiences were discussed and complemented one another, allowing the questions and challenges of some to enrich the reflections of others.
The module’s conclusion highlighted this collective effort. Each participant presented, in poster format, a pedagogical proposal developed throughout the process and received feedback from the other teachers to strengthen it. More than just a presentation of results, this exercise became a space for dialogue where each proposal received feedback thanks to this community.
Check out the highlight reel from the last session of the module:
The activities carried out demonstrated how equity can be addressed from multiple disciplines and contexts. Hyca – Diana Apolá López Bojacá, an arts educator at Menstrure, designed Biodiversity and Cycles, a project that uses medicinal plants to reflect on care” ”It's precisely about how we can use plants and how this can also enable us to propagate them so that we can gain greater autonomy when it comes to our health and the use of medicinal plants."
From another perspective, Sebastián García, a historian and social sciences professor, presented Pork Rinds in Colombia, an activity designed to encourage reflection on agricultural inequalities and the historical challenges of land distribution in the country.
Although the topics were different, both proposals shared the same goal: to translate equity into concrete learning experiences in the classroom. As Sebastián García pointed out, the module demonstrated that “Through collective efforts, we can develop solutions to transform common problems.”.
Beyond the educational resources it produced, the TREES Teaching Module fostered a community of teachers committed to transforming education through reflection, active listening, and collaborative work. By bringing together voices from different regions, disciplines, and educational levels, the module demonstrated that Teaching for equity is not an individual task, but a practice that is strengthened when it is built collectively.