The Library Hub is a program by the Department of Education aiming to address the lack of public libraries across the countries by setting up the eponymous library hubs. The hubs operate warehouse style, compared to the traditional public library setup--instead of books being individually placed on shelves, they are stored in plastic bins for storage. These bins would then be checked out and brought by teachers and administrators of public schools to their respective public schools, to be returned after twenty-five days.
Understanding by Design, Learning by Design, and Project-Based Learning can do more good to Philippine Basic Education
“Knowledge is not information to be delivered at one end, and encoded, memorized, retrieved, and applied at the other end. Instead, knowledge is experience that is acquired through interaction with the
world, people and things.”
- Jean Piaget
For many years, the traditional type of information delivery in the Philippines was centered on the teacher, who spoonfeeds the students which concepts to learn and directs them where to look for additional information on these concepts. During those years, teachers centered their academic activities on teaching their students what to learn, where to look, and how to learn.
Much of it has changed nowadays. Access to the Internet is easily available through the proliferation of Internet-equipped school libraries, home PC Internet subscription, and Internet cafes. Teachers have discovered that students prefer multimedia-supported lectures and web-based activities. Teaching styles have blossomed into a mixture of traditional and distance education teaching techniques. Today, learning focuses on faculty-facilitated and student-centered activities. The teacher is now merely a facilitator of knowledge and a guide to the students who have the freedom to explore different avenues of information to supplement their learning.
In a Constructionist Learning Environment, students learn by doing and making in a public, guided, and collaborative process which includes feedback from peers, not just from teachers. The main idea in this learning environment is to engage the learner in different experiences which makes the learner open to encouraging his own personal understanding. Papert (1990) asserts that “only in this way will there be something rich enough in your mind to be worth talking about.” Let's examine two forms of a Constructionist Learning Environment:
- Learning by Design comes from the constructionist theory which emphasizes the value of learning through creating, programming, or participating in other forms of designing, to create a rich context for learning. Learning by Design values both the process of learning and its outcomes or products. Its essence is in the construction of meaning. Designers (learners) create objects or artifacts representing a learning outcome that is meaningful to them.
- Problem-based learning is “a curriculum development and instructional system that simultaneously develops both problem-solving strategies and disciplinary knowledge bases and skills by placing students in the active role of problem solvers confronted with an ill- structured problem that mirrors real-world problems”. Finkle and Torp (1995)
I received reliable information that the DepEd plans to adopt the Understanding by Design (UBD) curriculum development framework. Covey (1994) best describes this by saying “To begin with the end in mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination. It means to know where you're going so that you better understand where you are now so that the steps you take are always in the right direction.”
Understanding by Design is centered on three stages:
- Identifying desired results (setting attainable goals and objectives in sync with the DepEd and school's student competencies priorities)
- Determining acceptable evidences (that students have attained the desired results)
- Planning learning experiences and instruction (identifying misconceptions and misunderstanding and addressing them at the design stage)
Some DepEd textbook publishers have already been reformatting their textbooks to reflect the UBD format, so this means DepEd will surely adopt UBD.
Understanding by Design, Learning by Design, and Problem-based Learning have a lot of main similarities. All of them are grounded on planning goals and objectives, designing and using appropriate learning strategies, materials, and equipment, and assessing and revising the entire process in order to ensure learning.
Whatever curriculum development framework the DepEd wishes to implement, however, it must highly consider the Filipino Learner psyche. We have seen a maximum of “adoptions” of “educational directions” and a minimal of “adaptations.” After all, the learner is still the center of all learning activities. The Filipino learner learns differently from a British, American, or Japanese learner.
Take for example the proliferation of Koreans in the Philippines who now employ Filipinos to rewrite existing English textbooks. The danger here is Filipino textbook re-writers have no idea of how the Korean student learns. With this neglected factor, how can the rewritten textbook be an effective learning tool for the Korean?
Before the DepEd tries to “adopt” new learning methods and standardize it for the country's schools, it must first “adapt” these to the Pinoy learner's psyche. Only then could we truly see a significant transformation of educational competencies of our students.
References:
1 http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Problem-based_learning
2 http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Constructionist
3 http://dougiamas.com/writing/constructivism.html#constructionism
4 http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/index.php?title=Constructionism%2C_Learning_by_Design% 2C_and_Project_Based_Learning - Constructionism, Learning by Design, and Project Based Learning
Maria Nieves Roldan-Confesor
The Bureau of Secondary Education (BSE) aims to provide access and quality secondary
education to the Filipino youth. It is responsible for establishing secondary schools where there are none; formulating policies, plans and projects, and maintaining a complete and integrated system of secondary education with regards to curriculum, facilities and teachers' in-service training relevant to the goals of national development.