SERVICE LEARNING IN MHCC-Can

 MHCC AS HOST SCHOOL FOR THE SERVICE LEARNING WORKSHOP

Service learning is defined by different educating institutions and organizations but there are four salient points that characterize what service learning is: first, it is a pedagogical model or a teaching approach; second, it is applying knowledge into a realistic situation; third, it is a civic engagement; and fourth, it requires reflection. Service learning is putting academic skills into relevant use to address a community or social need. It is much more than volunteerism or community outreach activity. Last June 26-27, 2015, Mary Help of Christians College served, for the second time, as host school for another TEA-ILEP Small Grant Project. The seminar-workshop, Instituting Service Learning as a 21^st Century Skill, was funded by the US Department of State through the International Research and Exchanges Board. It was one of the winning projects for the Fall cycle (February)  grant competition. Last year, MHCC-Canlubang was also the host school for the seminar workshop on Improving Science Instruction through Science and Engineering Practices. For this school year, the Service Learning workshop was participated by 62 teachers, education students and supervising professors from six different schools and colleges, including the three basic education schools of FMA Philippine Province. 

The seminar-workshop was designed as a mentoring session between the master teachers and the pre-service interns. During the first day, a comprehensive input on the definition, attributes and rationale of service learning was presented. Teacher participants also shared their assessment practices, which were eventually transformed into service learning proposals. Also on the first day of the seminar-workshop, the TGC fellows Ms. Susan Groff and Ms. Amanda Wallace gave an input about what service learning is and both of them shared practices and successful service learning projects in their respective schools. Ms. Groff also demonstrated a website where students can actually compute carbon footprint which is relevant for an environmental service learning project.  Ms. Wallace also presented actual photos of students participating in an environmental group. What was emphasized in both of their sharing is that a service learning project need not always be a funding project or the students need not always go to a poor community to be able to serve the society. Service learning can be carried out through direct or indirect service and through advocacies, as well. Day 2 sessions was concluded through an extensive discussion on the 21^st century skills through a collaborative think-aloud exercise. 

 

GLOBAL ECOLOGY PROJECT

Link for Mr. Randy French's blendspace class.

https://www.tes.com/lessons/irx_7mIjYXlxHA/introduction-to-global-ecosystems-november-2015

DNA and the Central Dogma of Molecular Biology

Teaching about the Alphabet of our Identify

Source: http://www.unacknowledged.info/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/DNA.jpg

One of the most memorable professors that had a positive impact on me was Dr. June Faith Escara-Wilke. I can still vividly remember her American accent, although she is a Filipin, Tagalog was not her first language. Even before she taught in UPLB, she was already a professor of Molecular Biology in the US . One of the concerns of her students was that her American accent added difficulty in understanding the lesson; nevertheless, upon knowing our difficulty Dr. Wilke tried her best to speak in Filipino once in a while which was a great relief to us. In the 90’s, the field of molecular biology and biotechnology was still in its germinal stage in the Philippines. But despite the absence of sophisticated laboratory instruments, Dr. Wilke was able to inspire us to appreciate DNA. I must admit I’ve never heard about it in high school and so as the rest of my classmates, I suppose. We used to have a joke about taking Genetics as a major because it was really specializing in imagination. We imagine the DNA,RNA and protein. We view the chromosomes under the microscope but we imagine the processes that happens such as the transposons or the changing loci of the “jumping genes”. Dr. Wilke was a game changer - she actually one of the few professors who made use of popular magazines and even brought her own gadgets to our lecture class. When I was an undergrad, Molecular Biology was only a lecture class and there was no sophisticated biotechnology laboratory yet. Dr. Wilke brought samples of DNA, a hand-held UV light, protective glass, gloves, etc. The use of informative text such as the National Geographic and Time Magazine instead of textbook was not a common practice back then. But reading such material actually inspired me to read more classic papers. 

As an undergraduate Biology major, my very first encounter with the central dogma was during a lecture on replication (I think in my Biodiversity class). Imagine a lecturer who uses only chalk and occasional handwritten transparencies. It was really an effort to understand such an abstract concept. Back then, it would have been better if there was a brief historical background to help the students see the bigger picture. 

A brief history of DNA research leading to the PCR experiment can be downloaded from this link: https://classes.soe.ucsc.edu/bme215/Spring10/Reading%20Materials/Polymerase%20chain%20reaction.pdf

CONSTRUCTIVISM: Strengthening the bridge between the 21st century skills and the Science & Engineering practices

CONSTRUCTIVISM: Strengthening the bridge between the 21st century skills and the Science & Engineering practices 

 “Do not confine your children to your own learning for they were born in another time!”

The Hebrew proverb reminds us that our learners, or shall we say the millennials, have cognitive needs that are different from what their educators had when they were still learners themselves. Furthermore, the Flynn Effect provides the challenge for teachers to cope with the advancing level of intelligence of the new generation of learners. In the 21st century classroom, the teacher is no longer the lone authority on the subject matter but rather a co-learner and a facilitator of meaning making. Hence, there is no other more crucial educative moment for constructivism than the present time. 

Murphy (1997) defined constructivism as a paradigm where “knowledge is constructed by the individual through his interactions with his environment”. In this view, the learners do not passively receive information and practice rote learning but rather actively participate in the endeavor to “make sense of the world” through experiences that provide opportunities to develop meaning and understanding. In the most practical way of defining how a teacher would know if a learner understands, we can consider the six facets of understanding based on the Understanding by Design framework proposed by Wiggins and McTighe. A learner understands if he/she can explain, interpret, apply, perceive another perspective, do self-reflection, and express empathy. The BSCS (2004), through various NIH modules on science education, equates the constructivist approach into active learning which means that are involved “in doing things and thinking about the things they are doing”. The NIH modules are all designed for active, collaborative, and inquiry-based learning in biological science. In an active learning class, students are involved in more than listening. Teaching strategies place less emphasis on transmitting information and more on developing students’ skills. Students are involved in higher-order thinking such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Instructors encourage students to explore their own understandings, attitudes, and values through more opportunities for engaged activities such as reading, discussing, and writing. In addition, academic learning time is spent more on integrated and collaborative tasks.    

The 5E Instructional Model is one example of an instructional design or framework that  exemplifies constructivism as an approach the acknowledges the role of the student as an active agent who “constructs” meaning out of his or her interactions with events (Perkins, 1992). According to this view, rather than passively absorbing information, the student redefines, reorganizes, elaborates, and changes his or her initial understandings through interactions with phenomena, the environment, and other individuals. In other words, the student interprets objects and phenomena and then internalizes this interpretation in terms of previous experiences (NIH-BSCS, 2004). A constructivist view of learning recognizes that the development of ideas and the acquisition of lasting understandings take time and experiences (Saunders, 1992). The key components of the 5E model, so-called because it takes students through five phases of learning that are easily described using five words that begin with the letter “E”: Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate. The role of the teacher based on these 5Es are further explained in the table below. 

Source:  BSCS-NIH, 2004

SERVICE LEARNING in the CYBER-COMMUNITY

A first attempt for an integrated project which hopefully will raise standards for quality assessment especially designed to address the needs of the digital citizen learners. The GRASPS and elements of assessment for this project are described in the haynayan wiki which can be accessed thru this link: http://haynayan.wikispaces.com/BIOLOGY+10+Performance+Task+for+SY+2015-2016






NOTE TO GRADE 10: Please post your personal reflection about this project as a comment. Include in your reflection the html link to your project webpage. Thank you for such a wonderful and meaningful quarter.

Our research portal formally signing off

Our research portal formally signing off

It took a while for me to finally decide to make time to write this piece. For almost 13 years, the first quarter of every school year was spent on reviewing research title, helping students find their way in the library archive and then eventually we learn together how to get the best of googlescholar. I was a researcher before I became a teacher but I was never formally trained in the art of teaching how to do research. I wrote a number of research papers, mosty scientific paper since I was in college and then to graduate school, but I was never trained as a peer editor or as a proofreader. 

For me, teaching research is all about learning together with my students. My journey as a research teacher was indeed “serendipity”. I substituted for an English teacher who suddenly resigned 13 years ago, being a researcher and writer by experience, I was forced to embrace the teaching assignment. And the rest, they say, is history. 

Until now, I am still amazed at how my students were able to reflect so much when I asked them to analyze Kenny Loggin’s “The One that Got Away”. This activity not only revealed that the digital citizens are self-directed learners but also they have unspoken feelings and thoughts that we adults could not fathom. In the critical reading task using Yann Martel’s “We Ate the Children Last”, I can still remember (and it always make me smile) how a seemingly indifferent young boy has a gift for writing. 

As a science teacher whose favorite topics are genetics and evolution, I must admit that my students taught me to appreciate and explore global studies, historical epidemics and genomic analysis. Four young boys reconstructed the evolutionary history of a virus family that includes the SARS virus. Whenever they present, I cannot help but keep silent in awe because they are the experts and I am the humble novice. As a reader, I am biased for the European and Latin American writers that I like but it took a group of young girls to make me realize that we must first appreciate our very own. How could Carlos Bulosan be famous in America when ordinary Filipinos may never heard about him? 

In a span of almost 13 years, almost a hundred manuscripts later, and three editions of course module, I am here pondering on memories instead of pondering about what themes would I use in the periodical test. I am writing a blog instead of analyzing interdisciplinary articles that I shall use for the test. Sleepless nights of editing and proofreading were one of the best moments of my teaching experience. Through my students I learned about the economics of rice smuggling, about why women conform more than men, on why every teacher needs to understand the learning styles of students and the reality that HIV is  serious matter in the Philippines that many adult ignore but young people are bothered with. I will never forget that triumphant feeling when my students come to me in the simple excitement of receiving an email from a researcher abroad giving their permission for my students to use their instruments. 

There are many brilliant ideas that my students came up with through the years. They successfully presented their research and I hope some would not feel bad if I fail to mention their ideas in this post.

It has been a yearly tradition in our school, ever since we offered the research course for senior high schools, to hold a research forum where senior students present their research to the junior students. They dressed up for this occasion and become the experts in their research. For a teacher to see her students speak with confidence, it is already heaven here on earth. 

Last year, the final year of the research course for the last batch of high school under the BEC curriculum, there was no research forum. I know that my students had looked forward for this conference; but because of circumstances I have no control of, we were never given the opportunity to organize a research forum. I can feel the disappointment when my students learned that they will never get the chance to display their research abstract-poster nor will they ever dress up like professionals and speak in front of an audience. My heart still aches for that silent unspoken sadness. Even though the students shout for joy when their approval sheet is finally signed, their eyes still asks why there was no research forum for their batch. However, I learned to accept that for other people, our research work was not as important as it is for me and my class. What a sad way to close a chapter. 

We are two weeks away from the culmination of the first quarter. Gradually, it is already making sense that I may never meet a research class ever again. I would always be grateful to my dear research students because they encouraged me to study further, explore my waterloos, and take courage every time I stand before them as a discussion facilitator and whenever I settle at the back of the room as a panel member. Thank you because I learned many things about social psychology, global politics, local governance, and other things beyond the reach of Biology.  

Thank you very much dearest young people. I look forward for the day when you would return to your Alma Mater as accomplished professionals and servant leaders in your respective fields of expertise. I pray earnestly that even in the smallest way, your research class somehow helped you in the education for life and your journey of living. 

When I posted the newsfeed announcing the closing of the portal, two students responded. 

I dare not say goodbye but rather till we meet again. Now, our research portal has indeed officially signed off.