'Teachers as Learners' first step in boosting the skill of educators
New teaching aids to boost the skills of Thai teachers and meet the challenges of the 21st century were unveiled recently. Under the name "Teachers as Learners", the teaching aids can be accessed via YouTube, Facebook and mobile applications.
A result of a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) between Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Education and Pico (Thailand) Plc, Teachers as Learners features video clips of learning-management methods created by members of the “learning community”, including educational experts, experienced teachers and those faculty members studying to become teachers.
The aim of the clips is to facilitate an exchange of knowledge, share teaching experiences and to convey practical problem-solving ideas, in an attempt to strengthen Thailand’s teaching profession.
Faculty Dean Associate Prof Chanita Rukspollmuang said the teachers’ learning community would be promoted through the PPP, which allows teaching professionals to input their ideas, experience and skills, for the benefit of the Thai education system.
As a leading educational institute in Thailand, Chanita said Chulalongkorn’s Faculty of Education had the body of knowledge, the drive to develop educational practices, and the internationally accepted lecturers needed, to provide content, knowledge and resources to the programme.
Pico (Thailand) on the other hand, could create presentations and broadcasts via appropriate channels to reach the targeted teacher audience. Online media could also be accessed nationwide at the convenience of teachers, enabling them to interact with Facebook and other applications to create a “learning community”, she added.
Education expert Dr Benjalak Namfa said the ‘Teachers as Learners’ material should be used by educators to share ideas that could improve their skills in the classroom, and boost teacher-student interaction in the process.
Pico (Thailand) CEO Silchai Kiatpapan said that in addition to the PPP and the Annual Congress for Teacher Professional Development (EDUCA), which the company organises annually, it planned to apply its expertise to promote teaching material via other platforms.
Teachers as Learners was inspired by the 2012 book of the same name, written by Prof Sharon Feiman-Nemser, Mandel Professor of Jewish Education at Brandeis University – an American private research university in Waltham, Massachusetts – which urges teachers to be lifelong learners and mentors for their students.
Teachers as Learners video clips can be accessed at: www. youtube.com/teachersaslearners; www.facebook.com/teachersaslearners, or via the IOS/Andriod application “Teachers as Learners”.
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