Secondary school teachers from the Division of Surigao City in the Philippines are working together to implement teaching strategies to engage students in active learning in their classrooms. The teachers learned strategies at a professional development workshop facilitated by Maria Ruth Edradan, a Physics and Scientific Research teacher and 2011 International Leaders in Education Program [8] (ILEP) fellow.
Edradan worked with a group of five ILEP science teachers to design this professional development training at Clemson University [9] in Clemson, SC. The workshop focused on four strategies for incorporating active learning in the classroom: inquiry-based instruction, community-based learning, a case study approach, and integrated project-based learning. During the workshop, Edradan modeled how to use these techniques in the classroom. She asked the teachers to be students themselves and investigate a physics model, both using a chalkboard and with physical objects to simulate larger scale physics properties. While hands-on activities like this have not often been used in Edradan’s school, the teachers were engaged with the learning and experienced how this strategy could engage learners.
Edradan states that these strategies help students to “become active participants in the classroom, providing them with varied activities and challenges. Applying the four approaches may enable [students] to construct their own knowledge and learn by doing.” Her colleagues were eager for her to share what she learned during the ILEP program and the administration hopes that the participants will apply the teaching methodologies to increase engagement that were shared and practiced during the workshop.
“The biggest success of the training is that some teachers are now applying these four active learning approaches in their classes,” reports Edradan. Edradan says that her colleagues have been able to apply the strategies across the disciplines in the school, including Biology, Chemistry, Filipino language, and Linear Algebra. She highlights an interdisciplinary project between Linear Algebra, Physics, and Statistics where students observed traffic flows in Surigao City and created an Urban Development Plan to decongest heavy traffic.
ILEP is a semester-long professional development program for international master teachers. As a part of the program, teachers take classes and specialized seminars at a U.S. College of Education, work with a partner teacher at a local middle or high school, and create a professional development module to share with their colleagues back home. By sharing her work during her time as an ILEP fellow, Edradan engaged her colleagues in her learning to benefit students across Surigao City.
The International Leaders in Education Program [8] (ILEP) is funded by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State and implemented by IREX.