EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP: BETTER TEACHING

CHRISTINE M. CALMA

Greater emphasis on skills also has important implications for teacher training. Our resolve to teach these skills to all students will not be enough. We must have a plan by which teachers can succeed where previous generations have failed.

Advocates of 21st century skills favor student-centered methods— for example, problem-based learning and project-based learning— that allow students to collaborate, work on authentic problems, and engage with the community. These approaches are widely acclaimed and can be found in any pedagogical methods textbook; teachers know about them and believe they’re effective. And yet, teachers don’t use them. Recent data show that most instructional time is composed of seatwork and whole-class instruction led by the teacher (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Early Child Care Research Network, 2005). Even when class sizes are reduced, teachers do not change their teaching strategies or use these studentcentered methods.

Why don’t teachers use the methods that they believe are most effective? Even advocates of student-centered methods acknowledge that these methods pose classroom management problems for teachers. When students collaborate, one expects a certain amount of hubbub in the room, which could devolve into chaos in less-than-expert hands. These methods also demand that teachers be knowledgeable about a broad range of topics and are prepared to make in-the-moment decisions as the lesson plan progresses. Anyone who has watched a highly effective teacher led a class by simultaneously engaging with content, classroom management, and the ongoing monitoring of student progress knows how intense and demanding this work is. It’s a constant juggling act that involves keeping many balls in the ai r.

Part of the 21st century skills movement’s plan is the call for greater collaboration among teachers. Indeed, this is one of the plan’s greatest strengths; we waste a valuable resource when we don’t give teachers time to share their expertise. But where will schools find the release time for such collaboration? Will they hire more teachers or increase class size? How will they provide the technology infrastructure that will enable teachers to collaborate with more than just the teacher down the hall? Who will build and maintain and edit the Web sites, wikis, and so forth? These challenges raise thorny questions about whether the design of today’s schools is compatible with the goals of the 21st century skills movement.

For change to move beyond administrators’offices and penetrate classrooms, we must understand that professional development is a massive undertaking. Most teachers don’t need to be persuaded that project-based learning is a good idea— they already believe that. What teachers need is much more robust training and support than they receive today, including specific lesson plans that deal with the high cognitive demands and potential classroom management problems of using student-centered methods.

Unfortunately, there is a widespread belief that teachers already know how to do this if only we could unleash them from today’s stifling standards and accountability metrics. This notion romanticizes student-centered methods, underestimates the challenge of implementing such methods, and ignores the lack of capacity in the field today.

Instead, staff development planners would do well to engage the best teachers available in an iterative process of planning, execution, feedback, and continued planning. This process, along with additional teacher training, will require significant time. And of course none of this will be successful without broader reforms in how teachers are recruited, selected, and deselected in an effort to address the whole picture of education’s human capital challenge. — oOo— The author is Teacher I at Pulung Santol High School–Main

ROWEL M. LEAL

Any government or public office is now quantified in its capacity on how it answers effectively to change. In this sense, leadership and managerial skills are requisite.

Leadership, as always defined by many, is a prowess to direct, influence, convince and persuade people within the group in unison towards one direction to attain the set goals of the organization. The leadership role of the school head is actually one of the delicate responsibilities he handles for he leads diversity of people. He needs to understand that there are more capable individuals. Some are experienced and some are neophytes who need scaffolding. This simply means that he is leading/ managing people with ample differences in various aspects. He needs to balance everything and ensures that each of them performs at the finest level despite of these differences.

The school head performs different forms and levels of HR strategic approach as a response to the aspiration of the government to quality change. A strategic approach to HR necessitates rational and logical systems. All the tasks of HR function collectively and strengthen each other. These work beneath a cohesive goal and that is to increase the performance of the organization.

The HR organization offers opportunities to guarantee the growth and protect the wellbeing of both teaching and non-teaching staff and it enables them to effectively reply to the demands of its swift changing environment.

The following are legal bases that reiterate the HR functions of the school head.

1. DO 9 Series of 2002: Establishing the Program on Awards and Incentives for Service Excellence (PRAISE) in the Department of Education

2. DO 57, s. 2007- Guidelines on Hiring and Deployment of Pre-school Teacher s

3. D.O 66 Series of 2007: Revised Guidelines on the Appointment and Promotion of other Teaching, Related Teaching and Non-Teaching Positions.

4. DO 50, s. 2014- Guidelines on the Recruitment, Selection and Placement of Personnel Pursuant to the DepEd Rationalization Program Under Executive Order 366 s. 2004.

5. DO 2, s. 2015- Guidelines on the Establishment and Implementation of the Results-Based Performance Management System (RPMS) in the Department of Education

6. D.O 6 Series of 2016- Hiring Guidelines for Senior High School Posit i ons.

7. DO 9 Series of 2016: Reinforcement of DepEd Order Nos. 7 and 22, s. 2015 as the Hiring Guidelines for Kindergarten to Grade 10 Teaching Positions 8. RA 9155 Governance of Basic Education Act of 2001 The school heads as the HR agents are now called to legally and intelligently select the best people as the facilitators of learning. These facilitators will ultimately develop and best equip their learners with all needed competencies that certainly respond to the varying environment. Therefore, the bigger functions that the HR managers/ leaders have, the greater responsibility and accountability they have. — oOo— The author is Teacher III at Buensuceso Elementary School, Arayat West District