SEAL going nation-wide!

Between January 16 and February 3 2012 VVOB Cambodia organized two five-day workshops for all science teacher trainers in Cambodia and officers from the Provincial Offices of Education (POEs) and the Ministry of Education (MoEYS). All trainer-of-trainer (ToT) members were workshop facilitators. Teacher trainers from the teacher training centre (RTTC) in Kandal facilitated the workshops.

The main objectives of the workshops were (1) to enhance familiarity with student-centred approaches (SCA) and multimedia, (2) to equip participants with a wide range of tools to make science teaching more student-centered, (3) to clarify good practices for ICT use in classroom settings, (4) to stimulate peer learning, (5) to plan for follow-up activities at each RTTC, (6) to introduce personal logbooks for monitoring and, finally, (7) to strengthen knowledge on SCA and facilitating skills of the facilitators.

As for student centred approaches, we focused on active reading and writing techniques, activities to induce student reasoning, concept tests and cartoons as ways to stimulate conceptual thinking and educational games. Participants were invited to make their own lesson plan, integrating the newly acquired skills. During follow-up visits in March facilitators will observe and discuss these lessons at each teacher training centre. Participants appreciated the wide range of content and tools that was introduced during the workshop, but expressed the need for more follow-up and coaching as they implement these approaches.

During the workshop the participants were first introduced to the requirements to run interactive multimedia for science subjects. Added value of multimedia for science teaching was discussed by comparing the use of real life objects to the use of multimedia focusing on the promotion of active learning and teaching. An overview chart of available multimedia for the different curriculum topics was presented, together with support materials. In another session, good practices for teaching using ICT were also analysed through observation of model lesson videos. These videos demonstrated how multimedia is used in order to teach effective lessons. During the final sessions of the workshop, teacher trainers explored the integration of multimedia and Student Centred Approaches through the development of a lesson plan.

An extensive workshop report, drawing on participants’ daily evaluations is available on request.