Seychelles Partners in Learning Forum Winner

Nathalie Duval wins first place in the Seychelles Partners in Learning Forum and a chance to compete in the Middle East and Africa Forum in Morocco against teachers from over twenty countries in the region.

The social sciences teacher has been teaching since 2011 after completing her diploma in secondary education at the University of Seychelles.  She teaches history and geography at Beau Vallon secondary school to students from secondary one to secondary three.

Although she was never interested in teaching, Nathalie says she is now developing a love for what she is doing and feels that she has this ability to impart knowledge to others, and enjoys working with children.

She feels at ease to use technology in her classroom, but has rarely had the opportunity to use it with her students.  Nathalie says that once she started doing the project, and got students to use ICT in the lessons, she found that students were more interested in working on their own, rather than always depending on the teacher; she realized that students felt more at ease learning with technology than using text-books or having her teach them.

Her project entitled Piracy: historical past; present threat; future impact looks at the history of piracy in the Seychelles waters, how pirates used the trade routes to pillage the merchant ships coming to the islands and compared this to present day piracy.  She wanted her students to compare and understand the differences that there were in these two periods; how the weapons and technology has improved, but also the similarities.

The project also gave students opportunity to discuss what they had learned; the present threat and think further on the economical and social impact that piracy could have on their country.

Nathalie says she is thankful for all the support she has received from her family and friends and colleagues at school for their support, as she did not think she had a winning project.

She also received two other awards for her project.  There was evidence that the learning activities provided students with the opportunities to work with minimal supervision, and the outcomes created by learners showed that they were engaged in learning process which involved ground breaking use of ICT.  The project also provided students with learning activities and opportunities to build knowledge and explore information or ideas that were new to them and to connect information.