After facilitating sessions in the seven-day "Theory and Strategies for Teaching in a Bilingual-Bicultural Program with Deaf Students" at De La Salle - College of St. Benilde in January, Nora B. Shannon, senior project associate in P-CEN, visited the classes of several teachers who have been participating in the on-line courses affiliated with the Teacher Education Institute (TEI).
The TEI is an on-line program for current teachers that consists of courses offering specific theory and practices for use in classroom of deaf and hard of hearing students. Since 2011 the TEI has been offered to two batches of teachers in the Philippines. (See http://www.pcen.ntid.rit.edu/teacheredinst/index.php for more information about the TEI.)
After taking part in the on-line courses, the participants have had different capstone opportunities. In 2012, the first cohort came to Rochester, New York and spent a week with teachers of the deaf in similar content areas. As a culminating activity, the participants performed a microteaching event in which they taught one class in their content area. For the second cohort, the capstone activity involves having someone visit their classroom to see them implement the strategies that they have learned in the TEI. Ms. Shannon was able to observe and confer with five of the 15 participants in the second cohort. She observed two teachers at De La Salle - College of St Benilde and all three teachers at La Salle - Green Hills Adult Night High School Program for Deaf Learners. Each program is unique. DLS-St Benilde has self-contained classes with deaf students and at LS-GH-ANHS deaf students are mainstreamed into the regular education classrooms. The teachers in both programs elicited great enthusiasm from their hearing and deaf students and showed that they were indeed practicing the strategies that they were exposed to during the TEI courses. Observations and feedback will be continued in the Philippines by Ms. May Cabutihan, coordinator of the Secondary Education Initiative (Sec-I).