As part of the response to the various challenges being faced by the faculty in such unprecedented and uncertain times, the College of Business Administration and the Guidance and Testing Center organized a webinar with the theme “Revisiting Online Teaching Strategies” held on September 3, 2021 bringing together participants from International School, colleges, and academic support units.

Mr. Reynaldo San Mateo, Dean of CBA, delivered the opening remarks and underscored that faculty members will widen horizon in terms of using different platforms and teaching strategies to ensure that the quality of education the students deserved are given to them and support to their mental health and well-being are provided. 

It was followed by the talk of the first resource speaker, Dr. Sheila Marie G. Hocson, on “Beyond the Four Walls: Supporting Mental Health and Well-being. Her presentation provided insights on the importance of mental health for the welfare of psychological well-being of the teachers, counselors, students, family and the community that we serve. She emphasized that we are called not only as professional teachers and school stakeholders but more than that as professional responder, professional helper and professional well-being advocate. At the end of the session, the participants were able to acquire information and awareness about different mental health issues commonly experienced by students, discover effective techniques and strategies in responding to students with mental health issues and become more confident in providing firsthand intervention or support to students remotely.

Professor Elenita N. Que, second resource speaker, focused on “Technological Innovations Towards Effective Online Teaching”. Highlights of the discussion were the educational principles in doing online tasks comprised of independent learning, invisibility of technology and student engagement; guidelines when using technologies like appropriateness to learners, constructive alignment, privacy and security and content digestability; menu of technologies which included the use of low and high technologies and assessment strategies. She added that the use of technology must allow students to work in groups on projects, sharing information and discoveries. She mentioned the need to know who the learners are, their characteristics and behaviors, and their use of technological devices.

Thereafter, an open forum was facilitated  where participants were given opportunities to raise questions regarding oversharing in social media and digital well-being, mental health program,  attention span, group works strategies, and 21^st century skills. In her closing remarks, GTC Head Sherelyn Sarmiento mentioned the importance of proactive efforts and interventions using techniques and strategies to respond on students’ mental health concerns and build better teaching and learning experiences. She thanked the resource persons for their valuable contribution and willingness to share their experiences and good practices.