From Kuhala Bay Resort

I just came back from a two-day planning activity held in Kuhala Bay Resort, Cardona, Rizal. It is a nice place, with a nice view of Laguna Lake. Here is nice picture of the lake and a portion of the venue from the many pictures I took:



I was with my colleagues from the Math and Science Area. I also brought along my wife and our five kids since she will be leaving for Japan tomorrow (April 11). She will be there until July 9. We did not see another opportunity to be together with the children anymore before she leaves other than them joining me in this two-day activity. So, the whole gang went. As usual, Mareng Annie made sure we had a good time.

We essentially had four groupings -- NATSCI (Area?), ALGEBRA, BMAT2 and ELEMSTA. On the first day, the groups reported on their accomplishments in relation to last year's operational plan, citing strengths and weaknesses of the plan, and giving recommendations to address the weaknesses or enhance the strengths. This morning, plans for the coming school year were also presented.

I gave inputs to two groups -- ELEMSTA and BMAT2. I also volunteered to share teaching techniques (how am I able to attain 100% coverage of the syllabi?) and materials (in particular, the ones which enable me to cover what are in the syllabi). I am sure that the others have some techniques and resources to share as well. We will no doubt benefit from such sharing activities, something like an area kapihan. For example, I proposed that we create screencasts on the use of Microsoft Excel's Analysis ToolPak. This add-in is usually the one used in introducing students to the concept of technology-based tools which they can use when working on Statistics problems. I hope to present one prototype later for my colleagues' comments and suggestions. Their inputs will give me ideas on how to produce the remainder of the set. Once finished, the screencasts can be used by anyone teaching ELEMSTA as additional resources.

I also suggested the production of video clips of problem solving for distribution to students and using, for example, Moodle in their expressed desire to create test item banks. (More on these in future posts.)

To be useful, these and other ideas must be translated to something concrete and working. It will be busy days ahead.