The Loyola Schools celebrated World Teachers’ Day last October 5th in an unforgettable way: They held a Lip Sync Battle among faculty and staff—probably one never before seen on the Ateneo campus. The originator of the idea? Ateneo de Manila’s newly established Ateneo SALT Institute.
To celebrate the vocation of teaching, the SALT Institute spearheaded this year’s celebration of Teachers’ Day in cooperation with the Teacher’s Formation Institute and the Ateneo Chinese-Filipino student organization, CELADON.
The afternoon affair started with a lecture by Dr. Emma Porio on the changing roles of the Filipino teacher, as well as the impact of social capital and community involvement in school improvement. The lecture was followed by the just-as-much-awaited Lip Sync Battle, where five entries competed for the grand prize–each of which elicited not only applause, but repeated gasps and loud laughter. In the end, Alex Abril of the School of Government won the top spot with her Beyonce medley performance.
To cap the evening, the student organization CELADON treated their teachers to dinner–and some songs!
SALT?
It all began with a memo from Fr. Jett Villarin (President of the Ateneo de Manila University) creating an education hub “to bring together the University’s efforts in education reform.” After a year of consultations and brainstorming led by Fr. Johnny Go, the Assistant to the President for Education Development, the university’s Board of Trustees approved the establishment of the Ateneo de Manila Institute for the Science and Art of Learning and Teaching (Ateneo SALT Institute).
Synergizing Efforts
The Ateneo SALT Institute is a consortium of schools, departments and centers engaged in teacher education and training. Rather than a separate school of education, the Institute aims to synergize and organize the efforts of four schools, ten departments, and four centers of education.
For the longest time, education programs in the masters and doctoral levels were offered separately by individual departments and schools. For example, the Education Department of the School of Social Sciences houses seven masters programs, while the Mathematics Department of the School of Science and Engineering has two masters programs and one doctoral program. The Ateneo de Manila University offers a total of twenty-one masters programs and two doctoral programs in education, but the efforts were isolated and separate.
After individual conversations and consultations, the different stakeholders from the different schools, departments and centers gathered for a Brainstorming Workshop at the Eugenio Lopez Center last July 27-28 2017. It was at this workshop that the participants clarified the mission and form of the Ateneo SALT Institute, emphasizing the need to synergize the university’s various education initiatives and to maximize their impact.
This workshop was attended by the Deans of the Schools of Humanities (Dr. Jonathan Chua), Social Sciences (Dr. Fernando Aldaba), and Science and Engineering (Dr. Evangeline Bautista), as well as nine department chairpersons and center directors, and eight faculty members across six different disciplines. During his welcome address, Fr. Jett Villarin noted how surprised and impressed he was to find such an interdisciplinary gathering.
The Institute brings together different departments from the School of Social Sciences (Education, History), School of Humanities (English, Filipino, Theology), School of Science and Engineering (General Science, Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics, Physics), and the Loyola School of Theology (Religious Education), as well as different professional learning centers such as the Ateneo Teacher Center, the Ateneo Center for English Language Teaching, the Ateneo Bulatao Center, and the Formation Institute for Religion Educators.
The core mission of the Ateneo SALT Institute is to “form reflective, creative and scholarly educators who are schooled not only in the science of teaching and learning, but also in their art.”
The Team
The team of the SALT Institute, headed by Fr. Johnny Go SJ, is composed of Eos Trinidad of the Interdisciplinary Studies Department, and Rita Atienza and Galvin Ngo of the Education Department.
Having served previously as the President of Xavier School for twelve years, Fr. Johnny Go has just been recently appointed the Director of the SALT Institute. He takes charge of its direction particularly in the creation of partnerships and fundraising. He recently obtained his Education doctorate from the University College London’s Institute of Education (University of London) and Nanyang Technological University’s Singapore National Institute of Education.
The former academic administrator of Assumption, San Lorenzo, Rita Atienza is an expert in Understanding by Design (UbD), having trained personally under UbD originator Grant Wiggins himself. A much sought-after teacher trainor, Rita heads the teacher education and professional learning arm of the SALT Institute. She is primarily in-charge of the Ateneo Turo Guro Summer Teacher Training Camp, which brings together the different departments to help offer professional learning for public and private school teachers.
A faculty and research mentor of the Interdisciplinary Studies Department, Eos Trinidad heads the research and outreach arm of the Institute. He is currently organizing the textbook development project that hopes to encourage and incentivize faculty to write educational materials or resources, and he is also arranging for the action research projects that will start in January 2018. Coming from his graduate studies at the University of Chicago, Eos has research interests in non-cognitive factors affecting education outcomes, and how teachers can promote more student-centered learning.
Also from the Education Department, Galvin Ngo heads the education technology and innovation arm of the SALT Institute. Formerly the head of the pioneering NEXT Ed Tech team of Xavier School, he is in-charge of workshops and seminars on the use of various technologies for teaching effectively, and is working on a coaching program for some Loyola Schools faculty. This program called Approaches to Learning with Technology aims teachers design, experiment and assess how to use technologies for learner-centered education.
Learner-centeredness is the Ateneo SALT’s main agenda in its efforts to empower teachers to form future-ready graduates. The central question that the SALT Institute asks is: “How do we make teaching and learning more learner-centered and effective?”
The Ateneo SALT Institute will be formally inaugurated in January 2018 when it moves to its home at the fourth floor of the George SK Ty Learning Innovation Wing of the Arete. The Ateneo SALT Institute is committed to empowering teachers and supporting them in their continuing efforts to improve their teaching practice.
Their tag line says it all…
To learn more about the Institute, you may visit ateneosalt.org, follow us on Facebook (www.facebook.com/ateneosalt) or email salt@ateneo.edu