"Learning by doing rather than just knowing"

Pedagogical Content

"Some teachers taught the curriculum today. Other teachers taught the students today and there's a big difference."

The type of curriculum in VRU and the form of assessment have similarities with the Philippine curriculum. In my observation, they gave activities during the lesson to assess the learners’ prior knowledge through a series of questions or answering the given problems on the board. After the lesson, the resource teacher usually gave a quiz or a long test. the grade 8 students usually answered the worksheet or the textbooks. Sometimes, the teacher will give them a task or project to be done by group and the outcome is based on their topic. Example in Grade 11, their topic was about organic products, so the teacher asked them to make an organic product on their own.

In teaching Science subject, the students will have to do a lot of activities because they believed that in “learning by doing.” They spent double on effort on the activity outcome than lecture. Also, during my actual teaching, I had to present concrete examples so that they can visualize the and understand better the concept. The activities must be done during and after so that they can better apply the principle of the lesson. The students involve themselves on the lecture as I was observing the teacher in front. She gave them questions and allow students to respond interactively..

Also, I learned the they had a spiral curriculum. When I first observe, their subject was biology. Then, my cooperative teacher. Aj. Jeerapun Norkaew, informed me about the subject and the topic to be discussed. She said that they were in the third quarter, so the subject would be Physics. Gladly, I accepted her offer. She and my mentor, Dr.Vanny Tiwow gave more emphasis on activities. It has to be done often by students to promote mastery on the concepts and the application.

The VRU is very particular with the activities given to the students. They believed that a key to strengthen the learners’ skills is through exposure to various activities where they can manipulate things by themselves, think critically, collaborate and socialize with others while partaking the role of leadership and community service.

I remembered my mentor who advised me to give different activities to the students because it involves the students in an active learning while they enjoy the process of doing it. My evaluator gave emphasis on the importance of activities and the resources to be used which allow make a room for interactive learning.

This was really proven and tested. I could see how the students actively play their part while doing the given worksheet and the board problems. They can understand better than just discussion only. The best quality of education is something that involve direct experience.

But me, delivering the lesson was quite difficult due to language barrier. You really must have an extra animated and wise as to how you can make a question more understandable for them to answer. Other than that, you need to understand the common need of the learners.