CI process in enriching classroom instruction

DECELYN LAVEGA-ARGUELLES,

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TEACHERS nowadays are confronted with problems in classroom instruction that affect academic performance of children. Several findings of local studies pertinent to academic performance of Filipino children reveal that teachers need to shift from traditional way to a new approach that could answer what the situation demands in treating problems on classroom instruction.

The Continuous Improvement (CI) process is a methodology to continually assess, analyze, and act on the performance improvement of key processes and service delivery, focusing on both stakeholder needs and the desired performance (School Improvement Learning Guide,2015).There is a need at present for the teachers to use the CI process as an approach in dealing with identified improvement areas on classroom instruction such as low achievement rate, low pupils’ participation during class activities and issues on numeracy and literacy skills.

The CI process emphasizes “process of learning” by following the three faces of the cycle which are assess, plan, and act. By observing these phases, the teachers are proactive and not reactive on the problems that limit the pupils’ academic performance.

Assessing and analyzing pupils’ academic performance (by having baseline data at hand) is very important for teachers. It is through this way that teachers could be able to grasp the nature of the problem by comparing the pupils’ performance on the planning standard set , identifying the inhibiting factors and things that have done before on the performance ,and identifying groups of pupils that require attention. The involvement of pupils and other stakeholders like their parents or guardians and subject teachers is indispensable in this phase to have authentic data.

The plan phase is when the teachers formulate solutions and develop project designs that could answer to the identified problems in their classroom instruction. It is in this phase that teachers try to localize and innovate strategies that could best suit to the needs and interests of their pupils.

Acting on the solutions proposed could be done first by smallscale testing prior to rolling it out to the target population/group of pupils to ensure the effective implementation is also done in this phase.

The results of the implementation should be the basis again for assessment whether to sustain and institutionalize or to have adjustment and modification of the project design made.

“The key to this entire process is to listen to our learners in order to get to know their perspective. We cannot assume that the solutions we know are the ones that can address the problems of our schools. We have to listen to our learners, we have to look at the data , we have to be patient enough to dig deeper and be open to what else we might find- and only then can we think of solutions,” said Luistro.(