A VISION OF EXCELLENCE

Empowering Learners through Active Learning

By Ellizelle Borleo & Reubel Catajay

 

Angelicum College in its 36th year of existence, now under the leadership of Rev. Fr. Ferdinand L. Bautista., O.P., continues to commit itself to provide quality instruction to its learners.   Faithful to its vision of “Excellence in the Non-graded Education and Individualized Instruction”, Angelicum is currently gearing up for a curriculum and module development that would emphasize the core subjects Math, Science and English for the basic education levels.

 

            Under this new direction, the facilitators as instructional materials developers have a responsibility to actualize the envisioned Angelicum Brand Modules.  It is important that the instructional materials that the college offers to the learners and which the learning facilitators use as primary tools for teaching and learning processes will be able to bring out a “competitive edge” in our learners which will distinguish them from other students.

            Last July 21-25, 2008 a team of professionals from the notable Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization Regional Center for Educational Innovation and Technology known as SEAMEO INNOTECH was invited to further enhance the competencies and commitment of the basic education faculty and key personnel of the College. Likewise it also aimed to provide them professional assistance through training workshops that enhance their capabilities in developing learning materials for multimodal flexible learning.  This significant training workshop was a follow up on the training seminar conducted last May 2007 by SEAMEO-RELC with focus on developing the envisioned Angelicum Brand Modules. The training was successfully conducted by two Singaporean-based Language Specialists, Dr. Chan Yue Weng and Dr. Carmelita Ballesteros.

            This school year, fifty (50) lower and higher level learning facilitators, college instructors, including key academic and administrative staff participated in this momentous event.  A team of competent, knowledgeable and experienced resource persons composed of Mr. Pierre Alejo, Ms. Maribelle Reyno, Dr. Ophel Veniegas, Dr. Marla Papango, Mr. Owen PeÔa, and Mr. Allan Canonigo facilitated the training sessions. They employed a mix of strategies such as lecture-discussion, individual and group thinking, focus group conversations, consultations, workshops and others.

            The five-day series of activities were both very informative and interactive. From day 1, the Angelicum facilitators were exposed to a flexible and interactive learning through an eSolution using the internet technology.  Likewise, it was very interesting to note that the on-line discussion between a teacher and learner through internet facility makes the conduct of distance teaching and learning possible and very accessible to all learners here and abroad.  The remaining days were spent in improving the existing Angelicum modules.  Dr. Marla Papango took charge in enhancing the facilitators’ skills in developing the instructional materials for English, Mr. Owen PeÔa for Science and Mr. Allan Canonigo for Mathematics.

            During the workshops, participants played their roles according to their work assignments. They were grouped into three:  the English, Math and Science groups. Other groups of learning facilitators from subject areas like CLE, Filipino, TLE/Computer, PEHM, Social Studies, and HSP also had a taste of writing lessons and preparing the Angelicum Brand Modules that would cater to the individual needs of Angelicum learners. In the preparation of the learning modules, multi-intelligence framework and the importance of interactive learning were taken into consideration. Learning facilitators, subject coordinators and members of the Team-Principal worked collaboratively in order to come up with a desired enhanced, self-contained, flexible, and interactive multimodal Angelicum brand learning modules.  

            Finally, the time for the presentation of the enhanced modules came.  Everyone did his/her best.  Contents of the improved copies of modules in Math, Science and English were presented and were critiqued and evaluated by the panel of experts from the SEAMEO INNOTECH based on the recommended organization that a self-learning module should have. Suggestions, comments and recommendations were positively taken. The last day of the sessions ended with the awarding of certificates to all the seminar attendees by Rev. Fr. Ferdinand L. Bautista, O.P. and Dr. Ophel Veniegas. 

            Since its existence, Angelicum faculty is continuously challenged to make teaching and learning experience more innovative, interesting and interactive. As each facilitator tries to translate himself / herself into a flexible, self-contained and all-embracing multimodal instructional materials developer that cater to the individual differences of Angelicum learners and promotes the self-paced learning, he/she is actually working on the realization of the College’s “Vision of Excellence” in education.