Learning Plans in the Context of the 21st Century

Introduction

The basic education curriculum of the country was enhanced with the
implementation of the K to 12 Curriculum. The K to 12 Program covers Kindergarten
and 12 years of basic education (six years of elementary education, four years of Junior
High School, and two years of Senior High School (SHS)) to provide sufficient time for
mastery of concepts and skills. develop lifelong learners, and prepare graduates for
tertiary education, middle-level skills development, employment, and entrepreneurship.

The implementation of the K to 12 Curriculum is expected to contribute to the

country's development in various forms. It is believed to be necessary to improve the
quality of our education which is critical to our progress as a nation.

One of the features of the K to 12 curriculum is the requirement to equip every

graduate with the following skills:

 information, media and technology skills;

 learning and innovation skills;
 effective communication skills;
 and life and career skills.

The development of these skills can be done with the aid of technologies for
teaching and learning which is the focus of this course. This course aims to present
activities that will prepare pre-service teachers to integrate ICTs in the teaching-learning
processes in the various fields of specialization. It aims to help pre-service and in-
service teachers to expand the boundaries of their creativity and that of their students
beyond the four walls of the classrooms It aims to enable teachers to discover the
power of computer technologies as teaching tools for greater learning.

Excite

Step 1: Knowing Each Other At this time, introduce yourself and meet other
classmates by choosing any kind of educational technology to represent your
personality and profile. The information you will get from your classmates from the
activity will be valuable information for you to use as you complete this module and the
succeeding modules.

Introduce yourself to the group using a specific technology that was introduced in
TTL 1 or that you have been using to represent you. Explain why you selected that
technology.

Step 2: Recalling Technology for Teaching and Learning Lessons

 In a group with 4-5 members, share the learning outcomes you were able to
demonstrate well in TTL 1. Reflect and share why these learning outcomes were
demonstrated well in the class. Moreover, identify the intended learning outcomes in
terms of knowledge and skills in TTL 1 that you were not able to demonstrate in the
class. Discuss how you can help yourself as a class. Demonstrate these to ensure that
you can cope with the requirements of Technology for Teaching and Learning 2.

Step 3: Reflecting on Technology-based Learning Experiences

Recall how your teachers in your field of specialization used information and
communication technologies to help you understand some concepts in your lessons.
Identify the specific lesson and learning objectives of your teacher. Were you able to
understand the lesson and demonstrate the learning objectives with the teacher's
integration of ICT? Why? If you are to enhance the ICT used by your teacher, how will
you do it? Will you use the same ICT or will you modify how it was integrated?

Explore

The implementation of the K to 12 Curriculum of the Department of Education

paved the way for the enhancement of the Teacher Education Curriculum of the
Commission on Higher Education (CHED). The salient features of the K to 12
Curriculum have been thoroughly considered to ensure that all the courses in the
teacher education program will meet the demands of the 21" century classrooms. One
of the considerations is the need to implement the following salient features of the
curriculum through integrating technologies for teaching and learning. The use of
technologies is done in the different levels of learning and in teaching the various fields
of specialization.

1. Strengthening Early Childhood Education Universal Kindergarten

With the Universal Kindergarten program of the Department, every Filipino child is
expected to have access to early childhood education. This access can be facilitated
using technological tools that are readily available to the school for teachers' use.

The use of technology in Kindergarten by various schools is very evident in teaching

the kindergarten pupils the alphabet, numbers, shapes, and colors through games,
songs, and dances in their Mother Tongue.

2. Making the Curriculum Relevant to Learners (Contextualization and

Enhancement)

Research shows that learners will value a curriculum that is relevant to their lives.
Students are often heard saying, "Do I need to know these to live a meaningful life?"
"How will I use this lesson in the actual workplace?" "What is the relevance of this to
me?" and so on. The answer to the question of relevance is vital to help the teachers
think of some ways by which they will be able to let their students realize that their daily
lessons are of good use to their personal well-being and to their professional
preparation. Sara Bernard (2010) stressed that students need to have a personal
connection to a lesson material that can be done through engaging them emotionally or
through connecting the information with that which they already know. This she calls
"Give It Context, and Make it Count."

Briggs (2014) shared some few tips for making learning engaging and personally
relevant as cited by Willis, Faeth, and Immordino -Yang:

Use suspense and keep it fresh - Drop hints about a new learning unit before you
reveal what it might be, leave gaping pauses in your speech, change seating
arrangements, and put up new and relevant posters or displays; all these can activate
emotional signals and keep student interest piqued.

Make it student-directed Give students a choice of assignments on a particular

topic, or ask them to design one of their own. "When students are involved in designing
the lesson, they better understand the goal of the lesson and become more emotionally
invested in and attached to the learning outcomes.

Connect it to their lives and to what they already know- Taking the time to
brainstorm about what students already know and would like to learn about a topic
helps them to create goals. This also helps teachers see the best points of departure for
new ideas. Making cross-curricular connections also helps solidify those neural loops.

Provide utility value Utility value provides relevance first by piquing students and
by telling them the content is important to their future goals: it then continues by
showing or explaining how the content fits into their plans for the future. This helps
students realize the content is not just interesting but also worth knowing.

Build relatedness - Relatedness, on the other hand, answers the question, "What
have these to do with me?" It is an inherent need students to feel close to the significant
people in their lives, including teachers. Relatedness is seen by many as having non-
academic and academic sides.

To be able to apply the tips recommended by various experts and to allow students
to realize the value of their curriculum, technological tools can be used. 21" Century
learners are expected to be demonstrating 21" Century competencies such as
collaboration, digital literacy, critical thinking, and problem solving to be able to thrive in
this world (Rich, 2014). Contextualizing the curriculum of the students for meaningful
learning poses challenges in enhancing teachers' pedagogical skills as well as
technological skills.
 3. Building Proficiency (Mother-tongue Based Multilingual Education)

To be able to promote the child's dominant language and to use it as a language of

instruction, maximum use of technological tools is highly encouraged. Currently, a lot of
teachers and schools are into developing learning materials to be able to implement the
MTB- MLE program properly especially that there is a dearth of printed and e-materials
in the mother tongue of the students. Mother Tongue is used in instruction and learning
materials of other learning areas. The learners retain their ethnic identity, culture,
heritage and values. Children learn better and are more active in class and learn a
second language even faster when they are first taught in a language they understand.

4. Ensuring Integrated and Seamless Learning (Spiral Progression)

Learning basic concepts that lead to a more complex and sophisticated version
of the general concepts entail TPACK: Technological knowledge, pedagogical
knowledge, and content knowledge. Rediscovering concepts previously presented
as students go up in grade level will be fully supported if all the areas of
specialization will be aided by technologies for teaching and learning. This will
further strengthen retention and will enhance mastery of topics and skills as they are
revisited and consolidated time and again. This also allows learners to learn topics
and skills appropriate to their developmental and cognitive skills.

5. Gearing Up for the Future

The K to 12 Curriculum ensures college readiness by aligning the core and

applied courses to the College Readiness Standards (CRS) and the new General
Education (GE) Curriculum. Hence, the K to 12 Curriculum focused on developing
appropriate Specialization Subjects for the Academic, Sports, Arts and Design, and
Technical Vocational Livelihood Tracks. All of these specialization subjects have to
be supported by educational technology for better learning.

6. Nurturing the Holistically Developed Filipino (College and Livelihood

Readiness, 21" Century Skills)

To nurture holistically developed Filipino, every K to 12 graduates is expected to

be ready to go into different paths - higher education, employment, or
entrepreneurship. Every graduate is expected to be equipped with information,
media and technology skills, learning and innovation skills, effective communication
skills, and life and career skills. This may happen with the proper implementation of
the curriculum and with the facilitation by excellent teachers. For teachers to
maintain excellent performance, they need full support, one of which is technological
support.
 Teachers play a very important role in the facilitation of student learning by
designing, implementing and evaluating the curriculum.

In the Philippines, teachers are expected to actively engage themselves in

curriculum design to ensure that the K to 12 Curriculum will be best delivered to fully
realize its intended learning outcomes.

Teachers make decisions about how they will implement the curriculum of their
specific field of specialization. They decide on how they must structure the activities of
their lessons and manage students' responses and ideas.

The following are points to consider in identifying and understanding teachers' roles
as curriculum designers:

 Undoubtedly, the most important person in the curriculum implementation

process is the teacher. With their knowledge, experiences and competencies,
teachers are central to any curriculum development effort. Better teachers
support better learning because they are most knowledgeable about the
practice of teaching and are responsible for introducing the curriculum in the
classroom (Alsubaie, 2016).
 Curriculum is the planned interaction of pupils with instructional content,
materials, resources, and processes for evaluating the attainment of
educational objectives -Jadhav and Patankar (2013).
 Curriculum is content, but when contextualized, it comes alive for students.
The role of teachers in the curriculum process is to help students develop an
engaged relationship with the content. Active learning increases the focus
and retention of the curriculum, resulting in an exciting learning environment.
Teachers build lessons that include simulations, experiments, case studies
and activities to deliver a curriculum. This interactive approach intertwines
curriculum and practical experiences that immerse students in learning. The
curriculum process provides an opportunity for teachers to be creative and
put their unique stamp on the classroom experience (Meier, 2018).
 Teachers, on their part, have practical knowledge based on their daily work
with students. This knowledge is useful to curriculum committees because
teachers can assess whether the ideas being developed will work in the
classroom (Young, 1988).