Friday, September 22, 2006

Curriculum Officer

During the Seminar on Curriculum Development which I facilitated last September 12, I mentioned that DLS-CSB will soon have a Curriculum Officer, who will be part of and will play a vital role in the support structure we have conceived for our curriculum-related efforts. This person will work in tandem with the Head of the LC Instruction Unit (Marissa Rodriguez) and will have the following duties and responsibilites:
  1. Maintains and updates database information of program flowcharts and course syllabi
  2. Reviews, evaluates, and monitors current course syllabi and program flowcharts using the Learner-Centered Curriculum (LCC) Framework
  3. Documents subjects and courses developed
  4. Evaluates proposals for new courses and checks for compliance with the LCC Framework
  5. Conducts research on new developments in education, and assesses its relevance to the College
  6. Coordinates with School Deans and Program Chairpersons in matters pertinent to curriculum and its development
  7. Provides educational advice in the preparation and development of course syllabi
  8. Participates in the design of activities related to faculty training and development
  9. Assists and performs other functions as specified by the Center for Learner- Centered Instruction and Research Director
  10. Performs other administrative functions for general work processes
In other words, s/he will not only act as consultant but will also monitor compliance of programs to the framework. Watch out for CLCIR's announcement of the details of the application for the position.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

OSA Heightens the Benildean Educational Experience

Learning doesn’t stop in the four corners of the classroom. That’s why the brains behind the Office of Student Affairs are constantly churning out activities and programs that will help students experience a full and meaningful Benildean education.

Here is the first batch of activities and programs Team OSA has accomplished in the first term of the current school year.


THE BEST AMONG THE REST. Benildean student-leaders listen to the inspiring words of the Ramon Magsaysay laureate in the Ayala Young Leaders Congress held at Filipinas Heritage Library, Makati City on September 1, 2006.




A PROMISING TURNOUT. Students practice their right of suffrage in the successful Student Council elections held at the LRC Lobby last August 3-4, 2006.




TRUST FALL. The officers of the Council of Presidents experience the value of trust in their teambuilding activity.




A BALANCING ACT. Student-leaders learn that there’s strength in a well-balanced undertaking.




RUN LIKE THE WIND. A DLS-CSB sprinter darts his way to championship.




ALL FOR ONE. The diplomats-in-training rehearse their act for world unity.




IN DEEP THOUGHT. Chess superstar Dino Ballecer plans his next move in the National Collegiate Athletic Championship’s chess competitions.




WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER. The Council of Presidents, the Fencing Team, and the Pep Squad are all united in their quest for excellence.




LEAP OF VICTORY. Blazing beyond limits, this long jumper soars like a true champion.




REACHING OUT. An officer of the Hotel, Restaurant and Institution Management Society gets a handful of support from his peers in the HRIMS teambuilding activity.




GREEN THOUGHTS. Benildeans commit to actively take part in the green revolution during the Lasallian ECO Camp held at De La Salle-Canlubang on May 9-12, 2006.




EL PRESIDENTE. Student Council president Ezer Agbon rallies the studentry to unity and involvement.




TRACKSTERS UNITED. The College’s Track and Field Team proudly displays the school logo in their recent victory in Kota Kinabalu during the 53rd Annual Sabah Track and Field competition.




BEAUTIES WITH BRAINS. The winners of the Mr. and Ms. CoPs 2006 possess not only charm, but a generous dash of leadership, talent and wit.




THIS TIME THEY’RE NOT ACTING IT OUT. The student-artists of the Office of Culture and Arts experience real life-changing scenarios in this training session.




ACHIEVERS THEY ALL ARE. The awardees and performers in the recently concluded 15th Gawad Sinag Tala sing the Alma Mater Hymn with all their hearts.




SHOOT THE BALL. The Blazers test their mettle in the Senior Men’s Basketball division of the 56th National Collegiate Athletic Association.




THEY CAN DANCE. Dancers from the Footworks Dance Theater, Benildanze, and PEP Squad groups take time to pose for posterity in one of their rehearsals in preparation for the opening of the NCAA.




GO, MOTHER! Student-leaders unite to carry the heavy but charming former CoPs president Henri Caunan.




THE BIRTHPLACE OF EXCELLENCE. Student-leaders learn the rudiments of running an organization in the annual Planning for Leaders and Artists Networking and Synergy workshop.




LEADERS AT WORK. Student Council officers are being prepared for battle by the student trainers.




VANGUARDS OF TRUTH. Rev. Fr. Oscar Cruz encourages the student-journalists to practice ethical and responsible journalism in the recently concluded Lasallian Schools Press Conference (LSPCon) held at the CSB Hotel.




THE MAKING OF A CHEERER. Members of the Pep Squad and the Fencing Team learn the basic of their craft in this training session.




UNITED. Student Trainers come together to achieve their goal.




Philippine Daily Inquirer columnist Manuel Luis Quezon III stresses the value of practicing social responsibility in the day-to-day conduct of journalists.




BARBIE IN THE HOUSE.. Barbie Almalbis plays her famous tunes to the delight of the student-journalists in the LSPCon.




POWER IN UNITY. Student Forum leaders commit to work together for the welfare of the studentry.

Monday, September 18, 2006

SDA Faculty GA

Last Friday afternoon, the SDA had its second General Assembly for the faculty. Initially, we organized this gathering to brief incoming new faculty re matters that concern teaching in the SDA and in CSB i.e. the various forms they need to accomplish for various activities, our policies on attendance, out-of-campus and substitution, guidance on syllabi making, computation and submission of grades, general info and plans re the SDA and CSB, etc. and also because we wanted to augment the CSB GA with a session that focuses more on concerns of the school especially for those that are not able to attend the first one.

This time we added a new segment for the proceedings - the first SDA Faculty Citations. We thought that it was about time we honor our professional track teachers who have done exemplary work in their fields of expertise, have garnered awards, or been recognized as experts in their profession. I also wanted to encourage the SDA faculty to interact and network with each other for within our school can be found some of the most interesting, talented and dynamic design, arts, music and dance practitioners. And was it a long list!

To name some, they are: 2006 Aliw Awardee for Best Classical Performer Male - Montet Acoymo; Palanca Awardee for Poetry 2nd Place Sid Gomez-Hildawa; Jed Balsamo's original composition“Angele Dei” one of the winning songs of the Philippine Madrigal Singers when they bagged the Grand Prize of the 2006 Florilege Vocal De Tours International Choral Competition in Tours, France; Jerold Tarog who composed the music for the digital film "Masahista" that won Best Film at the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland and the 2006 Philippine Young Critics Circle Aural Orchestration Award; Lito Casaje's “Siling Labuyo sa Kabilugan ng Buwan” for winning the Film Academy of the Philippines' 2006 Storyline Competition and for publishing last June his collection of original plays "Mga Premyadong Dula"; Danvic Briones and Dolly Ofrasio for winning the 1st and 3rd prizes for the “One La Salle for One Healthy Environment” Painting Contest last August; Rino Datuin for winning the 1st Prize in the Booth Design for the Organic Food Pavillion in the Bio-Search CITEM Exposition in May 2006; CSB graduate Ecker de Guzman, production designer for the movie “Binibining K” and the teleseryas “Pedro Penduko”and “Gulong ng Palad” for ABS-CBN; Noel Flores - costume and special effects designer for “Enkantadia”, “Eteria” and “Atlantika" of GMA-7; Mio Infante for designing the Ma-yi Theater Ensemble's production of “Nikimalika/Li'l Brown Brothers” in New York, in Manila the play “Doubt” and the musicals “Footloose” and "Beauty and the Beast" for Atlantis Productions, the Miss Earth 2005 pageant, Andrea Bocelli's Concert, and Lea Salonga's Home for Christmas 2005 plus ABS-CBN's Wazzup Wazzup, ETK, Entertainment Konek, U Can Dance, and Bandila; sound designer Jethro Joaquin for the plays “Saint Louie Loves Em Filipinos” and CCP Tanghalang Pilipino's “Pokpok ng Ohio”; Benjie Marasigan who was selected by the French Embassy as one of the two Philippine Representative to the GOBELINS, l’ école de l’ image International Summer School in Paris last July, as a speaker for the Animation Education Conference in Hongkong last May and most especially for mentoring Nelson Caliguia, Jr. and Jason Confesor in their animation project "Doodle of Doom" which was selected as one of only two Asian entries to the Nicktoons Network Animation Festival USA; Julius Clar for his 2006 photography exhibits “Sun Prints-an exhibition of 19th century photographic processes” at the Art Center in Megamall and “Van Dyke Prints” at Workshop 1 La Fuerza Plaza II, Makati City ; RM de Leon's 2006 solo art exhibits “Specific Gravities” and “Between Structure and Gesture” at Galleria Deumila; our SDA auteurs who have directed their own digital films - Paolo Herras for "Lambanog" and "Recados", Gabby Fernandez for "Nasaan si Francis?", Ed Lejano for "Seroks" and Elvert Banares who has finished three film projects and is working on two at the moment, organizing international film festivals for China and representing the country in this year's Shanghai International Film Festival!

Whew! It was a simple ceremony during the citation but everyone who came was pleased to know that we had such talents in our midst; for those who were cited, a sense of pride and achievement for being recognized by their fellow SDA professionals. Congratulations to all of them and may their tribe increase!

Thursday, September 14, 2006

TechnoNegosyo

This is to invite you to TECHNONEGOSYO which will be held on Sept. 14 to 15 at the World Trade Center in Roxas Boulevard. This is part of a series of events kicked off during the Go Negosyo Summit (GoNegosyo Teen Edition Conference and several GoNegosyo events held in different communities and schools).

TechnoNegosyo is designed to link entrepreneurs, government agencies and the business sector that encourage them to collaborate in research partnership, joint ventures, sourcing agreements and technology transfer.

The CA & IM Programs have a booth at this event. The purpose of the CAP & IMP programs for joining are two-fold : A venue to display IT products and systems developed by our students and a venue to display what students and graduates of CAP and IMP are capable of. We expect this to be a big event, with a veritable who’s who in the IT and Telecommunications business making their presence felt during the event. There will also be discussion forums with industry leaders all throughout the event. I believe this would be beneficial to us professionally.

Entrance is free!

Bracing for the 2nd Term

The tri-sem break was even busier at the SHRIM. The reason is the faculty and staff were prepared to make their valuable clients.....the students.... stay in SHRIM more productive and comfy to facilitate better learning.

Bracing themselves for the 2nd term, our faculty members underwent training on LC given by Lucy Bustamante. On 6 September, 12 part-time and full-time faculty shared experiences in learning engagements later validated by a review of APA's 14 Psychological Principles on Learner-centeredness. They then completed a workshop where they identified their stduents' learning styles vis-a-vis Mc Carthy's 4 learning styles and Gardner's Multiple Intelligences' Chart. The groups proceeded to propose instructional strategies (lecture, PBL, simulation, tiered assignments, anchored instruction, etc) appropriate to the learning styles previously identified. The groups presented their work by powerpoint which was subjected to peer critique. The participants requested further sessions on assestments and class management.

On another font, the Culinary Laboratory Unit which assists in supports the efficient implementation of experiential learnings of SHRIM's food and beverage courses had its whole day general staff meeting last August 31. Regularly conducted every term-end of the school year by our CLU Head, Evelyn Factora, CLU reviewed its strengths as well as weaknesses vis-a vis SHRIM objectives.

For greater productivity, CLU's sub-units, i.e Issuing and Receiving (Utensils, Equipment and Supplies;Dry Stores), Laboratories, Purchasing-support(Fidelio System), Pantry, and Warewash and Laundry, developed their respective Action Plans designed to provide more competent servoce in the 2nd term.

No let-up better service to enable CLU staff to measure up to the standards of SHRIM is CLU's goal. After all it is continously reaping what it has sown...what used to be 2-3 classes in 1996, culinary lab classes ballooned to 66 courses spread in 106 schedules in the opening of the 2nd triester of SY 2006-07.

Who says that this is the era of downsizing or fugality to the hilt? SHRIM just makes the most from its investment-the students-who will not fall short of giving their best...in full measure.
All for Saints La Salle and Benilde!

Friday, September 08, 2006

CDA Students in the EU Whiz Finals


In my August 10 posting, our CDA students won in the first two sets of the European Union Competition elimination round held at De La Salle University. Joyce Sadiarin, Ian Agsalda, and Thomas "Beau" Dela Cruz topped the elimination round. Last August 18, 2006 they faced Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP), University of Asia and the Pacific (UA&P), and University of the Philippines in the Final Round of this inter-collegiate quiz at SM Mega Mall in Mandaluyong City.

Ambassador Jan de Kok, Head of Delegation of the European Commission to the Philippines was there to explain why they created this activity (i.e. to make more people aware of the existence of the European Union). He also awarded the winners.

It was such a joy to see the energies of Joyce, Ian, and Beau. The CDA team, as you can see in the picture with Ambassador Jan de Kok (minus Mr. George Binay who was our "official photographer") were beaming with pride as to how our CDA students handled the intense pressure of the competition. Unlike in the elimination rounds, the Finals was a close match. In the end, our CDA students won second place with 8 points (tied with UA&P). PUP bagged the First Place with 11 points while UP-Diliman took the Third Place with 6 points. Congratulations to the CDA team and thanks to all who supported them!

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

MMA Roller Coaster Ride

It was a roller coaster term, 1st Term SY 06-07.

MMA Curriculum Review
MMA had to review its program offerings by asking each track within the program to present their track objectives, best practices, problems encountered, and proposed solutions.

It was a long climb in that coaster ride which started 2 terms ago and ended last term. 15 tracks all in all presented:
  • Art Foundation
  • Art History
  • Natural Sciences and Arts
  • Photography
  • Computer Aided Design and Visualization
  • 2D Animation
  • 3D Animation
  • Video
  • Graphics Design
  • Interactive Authoring
  • Web Development
  • Sound Design and Production
  • Multimedia Business
  • Multimedia Production
  • OJT

Each track has a volunteer leader that coordinates the curriculum development in the program. What have we learned in the review?
  1. We must aim to provide focus for the students as they go through the many (multi) disciplines in communication (media). Focus is provided during the last 3 trimesters in the students' stay in MMA. This is done by way of doing a 2-term multimedia production project of their interest coupled with 3 elective courses that will enhance their skills and knowledge in that discipline. With the development and eventual approval of the new programs in SDA, namely, Animation, Photography and Digital Film Production, MMA will try to focus on interactive authoring and graphics.
  2. Since not all of the students who enroll in our program are good in freehand sketching, we must create a program that will make our students like drawing (some of them hate it). Hand drawing is still a great skill that all artists and designers should try to hone. Drawing skills takes time to develop and as such, MMA need to introduce this course early on in the curriculum; 1st Term 1st Year. This should give the students time to enhance their sketching skills that was not fully-developed during their elementary or high school days. This means that the design foundation courses of MMA would need to be mixed with the General Education subjects for the first four terms.
  3. A lot of our students are weak in their writing, speaking skills. We need to work on this more, any suggestions?
  4. Our Academic Advisers met also and identified the need to create an intervention program for our students who need some “clinic” sessions for their courses. We are going to tap our MMA teachers to help in this program which is similar to what the College is doing for some General Education subjects. We hope to lessen student failures in this manner starting next term.
There are a lot more which MMA is trying to address which might not be the concern of the whole College. These are uphill struggles we are trying to work on for MMA to become a program we can all be proud of.


MMA Winners and Program Milestone
On the top of the coaster ride, we have had several winning sprees with the animation short of Nelson Caliguia Jr. and Jayson Confesor’s “Doodle of Doom”.

Emerson Reyes, director of the award-winning short video 'Ikot' (produced by Gian Mayo), won 3rd Prize for the Gawad CCP’s Experimental Video Category,

Love Nakagawa's short video 'Ngiti' won 2nd Prize at the Cinemadali National Competition sponsored by the Committee on Cinema (headed by Dr. Doy del Mundo and Director Peque Gallaga).

Ryan Vergara got the First Prize "Ako 1". This is his third time to win in the same competition after his double win last year (two First Prizes).

Our graduate, Jeff Tan, had his directorial debut with the film “White Lady”.

It was a milestone for us to be able to get Mr. Ronnie Del Carmen (Pixar’s story animator) and Mr. Tony Gloria (Producer and Director, UNITEL Pictures) to become part of our “Board of Advisers” in the program. We are hoping that they can help us in the coming terms as we push forward to becoming a world class program.


Some Downhill Battles
In the roller coaster ride we just had last term, we did have downward plunges we are trying to arrest.

It is still difficult to look and maintain MMA teachers for the program. New teachers had to be loaded the same 9 units as those seasoned teachers with very satisfactory evaluations both from the students as well as their peers.

We do need more space to move around and be more creative. Since the move to the new SDA building has been reset to next school year, we are now trying our best to squeeze in new ideas in small spaces. Our students and several of the faculty members of the program went to Singapore to attend the CG Overdrive Convention (http://www.cgoverdrive.com/) where we listened to computer graphics giants: Shuzo John Shiota, Ikuo Nishii, Carlos Baena, Andrew Gordon, Dayne Cowen, Robert Chang, Feng Zhu, Stephen Unterfranz, Michael Conelly, Daniel Martinez Lara, Daniel Gregoire, Marc Tan. We likewise visited 2 schools; Temasek Polytechnic (http://www.tp.edu.sg/) and First International Design School (http://www.fids.sg/ceo_message.htm) while in Singapore and saw how Multimedia Arts programs are being run in Singapore. We are eagerly waiting for the opening of our very own SDA building.

The downward motion only prepared us for an upward thrust. I hope you enjoyed MMA’s roller coaster ride.

Monday, September 04, 2006

Seminar on Curriculum Development

Next Tuesday, September 12, CLCIR will host a seminar on curriculum development. The target participants include Deans, Chairpersons, and other faculty members who are taking or likely to take an active role in curriculum-related activities, e.g., program development, program review and evaluation, program revision, syllabi development, subject evaluation, etc.

It is alarming that not everyone is familiar with matters regarding the curriculum, even though our curricular offerings are our main "products", just as McDonald's has its meals and IBM has its computers. So, in effect, the activity is an intervention program, making sure that everyone, especially the School Deans and Chairpersons, are on the same page when it comes to curriculum.