Conquering The Bigger Asia: Improving Learners’ Performance in Araling Panlipunan 7 through Geography’s i3 Activities
Maria Ermira M. Diaz
The teacher-researcher prompt that studying geography, students are able to recognize the responsibilities they have in relation to other people, the environment, and the long-term sustainability of the society. And including geography in the class teacher-researcher stimulate an activity that is called Geography’s i3 Activities, i3 stands for Integrative, Innovative, Interactive, Activities for a quarter-long lesson of Grade 7 students in Araling Panlipunan.
In a classroom both the teacher and the learners plays an important role in the teaching-learning process. To teach a subject better, teachers need to involve the students in the process so that instructional goals can be better met. Based on the Geography’s i3 Activities the following are some of the instructional implications that can be drawn that involves the student:
Integrative activities. Integrating Araling Panlipunan along with geography and other subject areas is one way of assuring that learner’s will enjoy learning, and that learning takes place at its optimum level. Araling Panlipunan can be taught across different subject areas such as Science, Mathemathics, English, Filipino, Music, Arts, P.E. and other subjects. There is integration when learners are able to connect what they are learning in one subject area to a related content in another subject area. It makes it possible for the curriculum to be child-centered, be responsive to cultural differences, and accommodate multiplicity, individuality, varying interests, and differing creative expressions.
Innovative activities. Teachers can start with one new project to see how things go with their students while revising, learning and building repeatedly. Innovation is a necessary change we need in schools today, and it can begin with you. Innovation includes finding better ways of doing something and new ways to look at problems. A core part of creating an innovative new solution to a challenge is to look at it from a different perspective. Teachers can create innovative activities that will help their students.
Interactive activities. Interactive learning is a hands-on, real-world approach to education. According to Stanford University School of Medicine, 'Interactive learning actively engages the students in wrestling with the material. It reinvigorates the classroom for both learners and teachers. Lectures are changed into discussions, and students and teachers become partners in the journey of knowledge acquisition.' Interactive learning can take many different forms. Students strengthen their critical thinking and problem-solving skills using a much more holistic approach to learning. Interactive learning can take place across the curriculum with or without technology.
Geography’s i3 should be used in teaching because it improved learners’ performance in Araling Panlipunan. Araling Panlipunan Teachers should be given inservice trainings on about this innovation for them to gain more knowledge and clear understanding of the approach. Since Geography’s i3 stands for Integrative, Innovative, Interactive activities it can be innovated or integrated in different subject areas. This research can be improved and should be continued.
--oOo-
The author is Teacher I at Marcelo H. Del Pilar National High School,
Bagong Bayan, City of Malolos, Bulacan