Rebecca is currently the Assistant Schools Division Superintendent at the Department of Education Division of Davao del Norte. She has been with the Department of Education since 1988. She started as a public secondary school teacher in English, then a school administrator where the school she managed won as the Most Outstanding Implementer in the national level before being promoted as the Education Program Supervisor (EPS) in English. When appointed as an EPS, she proficiently performed her functions as the manager of the Learning Resource Management System of DepEd Davao del Norte Division. As an EPS, she was able to facilitate instructional supervision during the Duaw Tulunghaan among the 184 elementary schools, 41 secondary schools, and 18 integrated schools in the Division for both elementary and secondary. From lowlands to highlands, she reached even those geographically challenged areas just to have meaningful discussions as way of extending technical assistance to the teachers, thereby helping them to become better facilitators of learning for the learners in their respective classes. As such, it was ensured that learners could have more relevant, engaging and contextualized learning opportunities and environment.
In order to address the learning resource gaps in the division, being the lead and key person in the Learning Resource Management and Services, she initiated and implemented the Book Mobile Program, Book Retrieval and Distribution. She took the lead in the development and implementation of the Training Needs Assessment. The TNA that has been conducted the LRMDS and has been very beneficial in addressing the teaching and learning gaps to be able to provide the teachers with appropriate training intervention and program advocacies. Since the integrated schools do not have yet their budget for the learning resources, the LRMDS has led the equitable distribution of textbooks by way of retrieving the excess books from other schools and deliver it to schools which lack the materials, thus, having more chance of bridging the learning resource gap and increasing the learning outcomes of the students. Through the LR Office, online resources, are made available for use even offline.
Along with the implementation of the K to 12 curriculum, since the year 2012, she implemented curricular support activities and trainings of K to 12 in all learning areas. She led the successful conduct of the K to 12 Crash-Course Training for elementary level including those untrained teachers who are deployed to the far-flung schools. Because of her leadership and management of the Division’s LRMDS, various learning resources were developed, and national competitions have been won recently, and relevant trainings for learning resources development were conducted.
As an advocate for reading, she also initiated the project, “Kayamanan sa Bakuran,” which is inspired by the Little Free Library Movement, an international program. More teachers have appreciated the impact of a mini-library especially about the children, and so they were able to adapt the project in their own community. Several story books and Big Books developed in the LRMDS are already in used by the teachers in the field.
A firm believer in providing equal educational opportunities for all teachers, she has enjoined the teachers from the Indigenous Peoples’ (IP) schools and those assigned in geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas to participate in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in partnership with the Regional English Language Office and the Public Affairs Section of the US Embassy. She has also formed peer mentoring groups with teachers assigned in the areas. She is the leader who multiplies more leaders. She has developed and motivated the teachers to become leaders and mentors of their fellow teachers by empowering them and giving opportunities to maximize their potentials.
Teachers from other divisions too, including the DepEd Division of ComVal, Davao Oriental, Agusan del Sur, and Sultan Kudarat have been also benefitting from the technical assistance and mentoring programs that she has been offering. Moreover, she has also extended technical assistance among the teachers of not only among the public schools but also among the private schools in the region including the schools under the Diocese of Tagum Education System (DOTES). Not only that, she even extended technical assistance to the Filipino teachers working in Cambodia for their professional development by way mentoring them on how to host and facilitate MOOC Camps in the country where they teach.
Being the MOOC Camp lead facilitator in the Region as designated by the RELO-US Embassy, she utilizes the MOOCs as an avenue for teachers and school administrators, and even those pre-service teachers to embrace change and to mentor another mentor as an integral part of the National English Proficiency Program and for the enhancement of the 21st century skills. Her effective management strategies and strong desire to help the educators grow professional have successfully resulted to the high achievement and participation rates of the MOOC Camp in the Davao del Norte Division, hence, tagging the Province of Davao del Norte as the MOOC Capital of the Philippines according to Jeanie Duwan, a diplomat of the US Embassy Manila.
She always gives her best to provide exemplary performance to all her deliverables each school year, whether it is for monitoring and supervision, offering of technical assistance for the teachers and school heads, over-all coordinating of events and programs, planning and innovations, and speakerships, she was able to perform it with good faith and excellence. This is why, for the past years, she consistently received a performance rating with description of Outstanding. Worthy to note that she was also adjudged by the Division Teachers’ Association (DTEA) 2016 as the “Person of the Year”.
Her wit and substance as a speaker has brought her through places, from school level up to international level. She became a speaker in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (ASEAN TESOL). She was able to share the success stories of Davao del Norte MOOC Camp to the participants of the World TESOL held in Baltimore, Maryland, USA on April 5-8, 2016. Recently, another opportunity was given to her to speak at the Cambodia TESOL held in Phnom Pehn, Cambodia on February 10-11, 2018. She also became a speaker in the Camdodian TESOL on February 18-19, 2016, and a plenary speaker during the conference of the Philippine Association of Language Teachers (PALT)
The Division of Davao del Norte became a Champion for the Learning Resource Story Writing Contest through her leadership and the collaborative efforts of the LRMDS team towards developing the learning resource of substance and quality.
Just like the roads leading to the different schools in the Division of Davao del Norte, her life as an educational leader also has smooth roads, uphill climbing, significant stops, yet always fulfilling and worth the journey as significant footprints were left especially to the roads less travelled by.