Participants in the 6th International and 7th National Teacher Education Student Conference (TEStCon) on April 12 to 13 included Cebu Technological University (CTU) Main faculty and students who took home accolades.
Winning “Best Presenter” awards from CoEd were Dr. Janine Joy Tenerife, Dr. Raymond Espina, Dr. Emerson Peteros, Dr. Limuel Abelgas and Janneka Fae Capuno. Bagging the same award from CAS were Mae Valerie Escalera, Christian Rey Licen and Ranel Noval.
Dr. Porferio Almerino Jr., CoEd chairperson for research and chairperson for Math and Science, said sending students and teachers to such an event is part of CTU’s goal to “contribute to the target of the university president, which is to inculcate the culture of research.”
The CTU delegation included 12 students and 22 teachers from the College of Education (CoEd); at least seven teachers from the College and Arts and Sciences (CAS); and eight and two participants from Moalboal and Argao campuses, respectively.
Dr. Almerino said that aside from teachers, students are also guided to become top researchers as shown in the participation of the 12 fourth-year CoEd students. “Before, we didn’t have research undertaking but now, we are really pushing the students to go outside from the peripheral [sic] of classroom.”
Student researchers are already being trained on their third year. “They would defend it to panel of researchers. From such defense, we will rank them based on the criteria that we set because academic thesis is different from conference papers. The qualifiers will then be coached where we teach them how to revise and how to deliver,” added Dr. Almerino.
He explained that it was not the first time that CoEd students participated in a research conference. In fact, CTU students made a huge impact in the State Universities and Colleges Teacher Educators Association (SUCTEA) conference on Sept 12 to 14 at Bayfront Hotel.
“It was an international conference for teachers but we had 10 students whose papers got accepted. It was then that SUCTEA decided to have a separate category for students in the succeeding conferences because of what CTU has exhibited.”
TEStcon was hosted by Cebu Normal University. CTU MAIN-UPO