Dagupan City – “My success as a teacher is not met until all my students are provided with the opportunity to succeed,” shared Desiree Cendaña-Perreras, an Information Technology Professor at the PHINMA University of Pangasinan. An educator since 2007, Cendaña-Perreras is just one of the 1,674 faculty supporting more than 74 thousand strong student population of PHINMA Education.

Since acquiring Araullo University in 2004, PHINMA Education’s mission to make lives better through education has seen it expand to five other locations across the Philippines and two more in Southeast Asia. For this rapidly growing network serving low-income students, student success is linked to teacher development. One of PHINMA Education’s programs for teachers is the Active Learning (AL) Lab.

AL is an instructional approach where students actively participate in their own learning.  They apply knowledge and practice skills, and then study and reflect on their progress and efforts. With their teachers as facilitators, students learn through independent and collaborative activities and feedback from their teachers and peers.

PHINMA Education’s AL Lab helps its teachers grow as AL teachers. It provides an environment to learn and practice effective teaching strategies and techniques. It features an AL crash course, an AL toolkit with suggested teaching strategies and resource links, additional training modules, and a coaching program.

“The goal of the AL Lab is to help each teacher become an Active Learning teacher. The vision is that in every learning session in our schools, students are trying things out, reflecting on feedback and lessons learned, and practising their skills,” said PHINMA Education’s Chief Academics Officer Francis Larios.

Teacher development at PHINMA Education also includes support in pursuing further studies and exposure to training programs outside their respective universities. This helps ensure they provide students with knowledge and skills that are up to date. Cendaña-Perreras, for example, earned her Master’s degree in Information Studies at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore with help from PHINMA Education.

“The achievements of our students and our schools are mainly a product of our employees working hard for our mission, and our students taking responsibility for their own learning,” Larios concluded.

Since 2014, PHINMA Education has produced 93 board topnotchers and 22,287 licensed professional graduates. It has also been among the top-performing schools in various professional licensure examinations.