Testimonial of a science teacher trainer: "I hope my change will inspire my colleagues"

Mrs Borey is a 29 year-old science teacher trainer. She works at Kampot provincial teacher training college.

Since 2014 she is also a core team member for the VVOB programme on primary education. After building up her own capacity, she will become one of the nation-wide trainers.

Mrs So Sam Borey returns from trying out experiments for the nationwide training. She gladly recalls how participating in the core team has changed her, both professionally and personally. By joining the science core team she has not only been able to build up her knowledge on teaching methodology, it also led to a remarkable change in her daily work.

“In the past, my lessons were more theoretical”, the teacher trainer remembers. Her current teaching, she considers more successful. She is now able to guide student teachers to do experiments and to link between theory and experiments. She also pays attention to misconceptions in class and makes her own reflection after each lesson to further improve her teaching.

Mrs Borey really notices the improvement of learning outcomes by using a more student-centred approach. The student teachers are now more active and engaged. They ask questions and express their ideas. They are eager to learn and better understand the new lessons. She considers these changes very important as motivated students will learn more. They will do research and be willing to help develop their own country.

Taking part in the core team has contributed to these changes. Mrs Borey has learnt a lot from sharing experiences and thoughts with other core team members. She also feels more confident in expressing her thoughts and she is more willing to accept constructive feedback from others.

Mrs Borey is now more involved in school development. She takes initiative and provides feedback to her colleagues. For the future, she would like to see further improvements in the quality of science education in Cambodia – inspired by her study visit to Thailand. But the teacher trainer adds: “I will start by changing myself. Then I hope my change will inspire my colleagues after they see the positive influence on students’ learning outcomes.”