Top teacher pushes Web-based learning

MANILA, Philippines - Graduating at the top of an advanced ICT-integrated training program for teachers, Faith Lalaine Lopez, 30, shares that she is determined to stay put in the country, having rejected the lure of overseas teaching years ago. 

Lopez teaches English at her alma mater, the Consolacion National High School in Consolacion, Cebu. In a batch of 97 teachers from Central Visayas, she was valedictorian in the Global Filipino Teachers (GFT) Program, a six-day ICT-integrated teacher training program provided by Globe in cooperation with the Cebu-based Coalition for Better Education (CBE). 

Faith started her teaching career in a private school. She later opted for public school teaching which, she says, provides a more secure path with regular salary increases, promotions and clear retirement benefits. 

Time spent in teaching would deepen Faith’s reasons for teaching. At Consolacion each year, she handles five sections of about 70 students each. Three of these five sections, classified as the “lower” sections, are without classrooms and hold classes in the school’s covered court.   

“Some of my students in the lower sections are already married and have children to rear.  Most are over-aged. I have students aged 22, 23, and 25. Some belong to broken families.  Some are working students,” she shares. “I empathize with these students. I see that they are really in need of help.” 

She affirmed her calling as a public school teacher when her school chose her to participate in the GFT program with the support of the Department of Education.  

Launched in September 2009 with teachers from Cebu, Bohol, and Negros Oriental, the GFT is a holistic teacher enhancement program focusing on ICT-enabled learning processes. It is a component of Globe Bridging Communications (Globe BridgeCom), the umbrella corporate social responsibility program in ICT integration for education. 

The inspiration for the conduct of GFT came on the heels of the successful implementation of Globe’s Internet-in-Schools Program (ISP). Launched in 2004 to harness the company’s broadband and mobile technologies to enhance education, ISP has provided Internet connection to 2,002 public schools. 

In her valedictory speech at the GFT graduation rites, Faith declared: “Change is constant. Now we are in the age of technology.  We have to deviate from the usual chalk-talk to the resources and technological means around us.” 

The GFT program uses the Project-Based Learning approach, which encourages not just research but discussion and exchanges of ideas among teachers to arrive at solutions to problems.  

Faith has been applying the PBL approach to lessons of her first two sections, the “higher” ones whose classes are held in traditional classrooms. She observed that the students learned more.  “They don’t just surf the Net, but they also have to look for articles that are reliable.  Before, they just surfed without checking.  Now, activities are more fun.  Now, they do storytelling.” 

One thing Faith kept repeating as she explained the benefits of GFT was the “fun” she experienced during the training.  She’s been passing on that “fun” to her English classes. 

At the moment, her students in the sections holding classes in the school’s covered courts could not benefit from Internet-based learning, but she hopes that soon, these students can also benefit from these improved methods. “I really want to apply what I learned from the GFT to my lower sections.  Given ICT training, maybe these students can use their skills in other ways even if they don’t go to college.” 

After GFT, Faith is a better teacher, she says. Her dreams have changed and her ways to attain these have also changed.