Upgrading teachers: multifaceted approach
By Evelina M. Vicencio, Ph.D.Chair, Training Committee, Foundation for Upgrading the Standard of Education (FUSE)
ONCE a teacher always a student." Learning for a teacher and for other professionals as well, does not end with a diploma. A teacher has to keep on studying to keep abreast of new developments in his/her area of teaching, about present-day learners, about new methods, and about education in general.
Teacher upgrading in the Philippine public school system is a major responsibility of the DepEd, which has established the National Education Academy of the Philippines (NEAP) to take care of this function. Simulating the bureaucracy of the Department, teacher upgrading usually employs the cascading or "echoing" approach, upgrading top-level management first, whose responsibility it is to train the next in rank and so on, from the Regional Directors, the Superintendents, the Division Supervisors, the District Supervisors, the Principals, to the teachers at the bottom. With information passing through so many layers, input reaching the teachers is oftentimes either diluted, abridged, incomplete, erroneous, or all of the above. The worst scenario is a breakdown in the chain, such that no upgrading reaches the teachers at all, the most common cause of which is "no more funds." The private schools fare a little better because of the smaller size of the private school sector.
The need for teacher upgrading and the inability of the government to discharge this function fully, has prompted non-government organizations involved in education to pitch in and share in this undertaking. One such organization is the Foundation for Upgrading the Standard of Education (FUSE) established and incorporated on April 12, 1994, formerly with offices at the Allied Bank Building, Makati City.
FUSE is a non-profit, non-governmental organization formed for educational, cultural, scientific, and social development pursuits. It aims to elevate and maintain a high standard of education through improved teacher training, especially in science, mathematics, and English. These three subjects have been identified as the learning areas where Filipino students have fared poorly in the National Achievement Tests (NAT) as well as in international examinations. FUSE teacher upgrading can therefore be considered as needs-based because it responds to a need relevant to the present-day situation of Philippine education.
The Foundation’s commitment to quality education is expressed in its framework "Service to teachers is service to the nation." In its 13 years of existence, FUSE has been engaged in upgrading teachers’ skills, especially in the fields of English, science, and mathematics.
A Multifaceted Approach
FUSE subscribes to the statement that planning training interventions is never likely to be satisfied by rigid adherence to a single approach, so that since its establishment in 1994, it has been partnering with government and private educational institutions in providing teacher upgrading using a multifaceted approach, to reach as many teachers and educators in the most effective and efficient way.
Characteristics of the Multifaceted Approach to Teacher Upgrading
The multifaceted approach to teacher upgrading employed by FUSE has the following characteristics:
* It satisfies both FUSE’s vision, mission, and goals and its clientele’s needs;
* It is balanced in terms of learning areas (English, Science, and Mathematics);
* It is well-organized, properly sequenced; it provides adequately for differing needs and abilities of participants; it offers flexibility to trainers and participants, and is responsive to change;
* It was developed through a systematic and orderly process;
* It is regularly evaluated, with provisions for feedback and mechanisms to permit refinement, updating, and continuing effectiveness;
* It uses varied learnercentered strategies;
* It encompasses all types and levels of teachers;
* It uses a variety of delivery systems suited to teachers’ learning styles;
* It can be offered inhouse or off-site as long as facilities and equipment are available
Varied Modes of Teacher Upgrading
FUSE employs six modes of teacher upgrading: Formal and non-formal, responding and initiating, and institutionalized and special.
Formal and Non-formal
Formal upgrading involves enrolling in courses leading towards a degree. FUSE formal upgrading enables teachers of mathematics and the sciences to pursue graduate courses in partner universities as FUSE scholars. The project called Science and Engineering Education Program (SEEP) was established in 2005. Annually, it supports the graduate studies of 80 scholars teaching in the public schools. This enables the teachers to pursue master’s degrees full-time either in Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, or Biology.
Most of the non-formal teacher upgrading offered by FUSE consists of shortterm training courses developed to improve teacher competence in the three target learning areas. The training courses are in the form of seminars or workshops or a combination of both, taken by teachers in one day or over several days, either continuously or weekly. The non-formal courses follow syllabi. Examples of non-formal courses are the 12-day FUSE summer English workshops, the half-day Trainers’ Professional Development Seminar, and the 2-day FUSE Training Courses on the Use of CONSTEC (Continuing Studies via Technology) DVDs in Teaching English and the Sciences.
FUSE undertakes teacher upgrading and offers the same opportunity to its members in the form of a non-formal monthly forum / General Assembly, educational visits, and participation in international conferences. Most of the FUSE members are top-level executives of the Department of Education, heads of universities and colleges, and subject-matter specialists. FUSE members have gone on educational visits to educational institutions in Hong Kong (1997 and 2002), Malaysia and Singapore (1999), and Beijing, China (2003). They also participated at the 5th UNESCOACEID International Conference on Education (1999) in Bangkok and at the 9th UNESCO-APEID International Conference on Educational Innovations in Shanghai (2003).
Responding and Initiating
The first teacher upgrading courses (Summer English Workshops) were initiated by FUSE. The workshops were conducted for three summers (1994-1996) in different parts of the country and trained more than 1,000 high school English teachers.
Most of the training courses that followed were all in response to requests by organizations and institutions that wanted to partner with FUSE, for example, the PELT (Philippine English Language Teaching) workshops conducted in 1997-1998 in cooperation with the Overseas Development Administration of the British Government, the British Council, and the Ateneo Center for English Language Teaching (ACELT).
At present, the non-formal training courses being conducted are all FUSE-initiated — the two-day FUSE Training Courses on the Use of CONSTEC DVDs in Teaching English and the Sciences.
Institutionalized and Special
Institutionalized training courses are designed to address recurring problems or concerns and are therefore conducted on a regular and continuing basis. The present FUSE courses on the use of CONSTEC DVDs are institutionalized courses that the Foundation has been offering since 1997 to the present.
On the other hand, special courses are one-time programs developed to meet a specific need. The Teacher Training on Classroom Technology Solutions seminar and the ELAN: Training School Heads and Mid-Level Managers are both examples of special courses undertaken by FUSE.
Different Target Participants
FUSE upgrades not only teachers’ competence but other educators’ as well — administrators, supervisors, trainers, and other people involved actively in education.
Training courses have been designed and held for school administrators and supervisors, elementary and high school teachers, faculty of tertiary level institutions, and FUSE trainers and members.
Priority Learning Areas
The FUSE training courses focus on three learning areas considered the most difficult for students to learn and for teachers to teach:
* English
* Science: Elementary Science and Health, High School Physics, High School Chemistry
* Mathematics (Algebra)
Flexible Delivery Systems
FUSE uses and has made use of four training delivery systems to suit different learning styles of teachers: interactive multi-media, distance training, centralized, and a combination of any two or all of the three.
Interactive multimedia training (IMT)
Interactive multimedia training (IMT), sometimes called interactive training systems (ITS), interactive performance systems, performance support systems (PSS), or on-demand learning systems, are learner-controlled systems that can match many teachers’ preferred learning styles. Multimedia combines a variety of formerly independent sound and visual media, with a computer in control. Such is the nature of the CONSTEL (earlier called Continuing Science Education via Television [1995] then Continuing Studies via Television [(1999]) VHS tapes that FUSE started distributing nationwide and using in its teacher upgrading courses.
Senator Edgardo J. Angara, Chair of the FUSE Board of Trustees, proudly stated that the program (CONSTEL) would radically transform the educational system in several ways and make our schools at par with those of other advanced countries.
Each set of VHS tapes in the Sciences has 40 telelessons or episodes -- Science Made Easy, Chemistry in Action, and Physics in Everyday Life -- or a total of 120 episodes, with corresponding printed Teaching Support Materials (TSMs). The TSMs provide the Science teachers with comprehensive background information about each topic, including varied and interesting learner-centered strategies that develop higher order thinking skills. The TSMs are congruent with the principles and philosophy of the Basic Education Curriculum, integrating Values Education, Core Life Skills, and competencies in other learning areas, especially English. Hence, the skills are integrated, the approach is interdisciplinary, and the activities are interactive. The suggested activities and instructional materials and equipment are likewise culture responsive and utilize resources found in various communities in the Philippines. On the other hand, the VHS tapes in English has 45 episodes, dealing with the teaching of listening, speaking, reading, writing, grammar, and literature, with a testing component built into each macro-skill or macro-topic. These VHS tapes are also accompanied by Teaching Support Materials.
From 1996-2004, videotapes were distributed to schools personally by FUSE officials and members and through the branches of Allied Bank. However, observations made by FUSE officials in visits to recipient schools showed that many teachers were either not using the tapes or using them improperly, i.e., just letting the students view the whole episode, which actually are for teachers. So, the Training Committee of FUSE decided to design training courses on the use of the CONSTEL tapes in teaching the learning areas. These training courses have become FUSE’s banner courses from 2004 to the present.
The institutionalized training courses on the use of CONSTEC or Continuing Studies via Technology (formerly CONSTEL) VCDs /DVDs in English, Science and Health, Physics, and Chemistry also gave rise to the need for a permanent training site for FUSE. Thus was established the Learning Center for Teachers (LCT) in 2005 located at the Pearl of the orient Tower on Roxas Boulevard.
Distance training
FUSE embarked on distance training through the radio simulcast over Cable 77 in cooperation with the University of the Philippines-National Institute of Science and Mathematics Education (UP-NISMED) that offered two sets of distance education programs enrolled in by 45 teachers in some key regions of the country.
Centralized or conventional training involves instructors, a group of participants, and a classroom and employs standard strategies, for example, lecture, discussion, demonstration, and practical exercises methods of instruction as well as the use of audio-visual aids.
Centralized training is customized to meet the participants’ needs. It is flexible because the instructor can adjust the content and teaching strategy to the participants’ needs. It has also disadvantages: its success depends on the competence of the instructor, which is why FUSE trainers are carefully chosen.
Movable Training Sites
Learning Center for Teachers (LCT)
FUSE offers regular interactive multimedia combined with centralized training in its Learning Center for Teachers (LCT) during the school year. The main advantage of training courses held at the FUSE LCT is that it has laboratories for science classes; an audio-visual room; a library; equipment, such as computers, duplicating machines, televisions, VCDs, etc.; and clerical staff to assist in administrative matters.
Off-site
During summer, off-site training courses are held in the provinces in response to requests from the Regional/Division offices of the Department of Education and from private institutions.
Looking forward, FUSE expects to train more teachers using the multi-faceted approach, reach out to a greater number of educators throughout the country, assist the government in shaping and carrying out comprehensive and efficient programs, and help achieve the vision of government that every Filipino youth, regardless of social status, can avail of the privilege of being on equal terms with the rest of the world.
