The Role of Principals

in Creating a Learner-
Centered Classroom
Joyce DR Andaya
Director III
OIC , Bureau of Secondary Education
 The Dignity of the Child
Anna is in Grade 2. Like many seven year olds, she bubbles with energy.
This morning she skipped, hopped and laughed with her best friend on
the way to school, but as soon as she arrived things went wrong. First, the
Math homework she had completed the night before wasn’t in her bag.
When she told her teacher she couldn’t find it, the teacher with hands on
hips, said, “You forgot your homework again? You are so disorganized!”

Later that morning, the class attended an assembly in the school hall. On
the way back to class, two girls shoved Anna into the wall, causing her to
trip and fall. “ You are so disorganized,” they jeered, echoing the teacher.
Two boys pointed and laughed; when the teacher told them to quiet down,
they looked at Anna as if it were her fault that they were reprimanded.

Back in class, Anna looked down at her hands while the rest of the class
went over with their Math homework. The girl sitting next to her said,
loud enough for everyone to hear, “No wonder you are so dumb.” The
teacher decided to ignore it and continue on with the lesson. At lunch
Anna couldn’t eat much because her stomach hurt. And so on it went,
through the day; on the way home, she walked silently, glumly, unaware
of anything around her. Senge, Schools that Learn
Are we doing the
right things?
 Materials

Globalization of
Technology

Services and Knowledge base

Changing value drivers

Knowledge explosion Education

“Our youth now love luxury. They have bad
manners, contempt for authority; they show
disrespect for their elders and love chatter in
place of exercise; they no longer rise when
elders enter the room; they contradict their
parents, chatter before company; gobble up
their food and tyrannize their teachers.”

SOCRATES, FIFTH CENTURY B.C. -

 A few things teens have to face
 They have to handle
sexually maturing
bodies that give rise to They have to deal with
strong urges wildly changing moods

 They have to try to

figure out and manage
volatile and powerful
emotions

 They have to fit into a

complex social network

 They have to deal

with immense peer
pressure
 More things teens face

• They have to decide how they are going to

respond to the temptation of tobacco, alcohol, and
drugs

• They have to figure out what their values are going to

be

• They have to get through school

• They have to figure out how to get enough sleep

• They have to begin to plan their future

Fernandez, How Children Learn
 Relationship with Technology
Generation Y has a nearly intimate connection to
technology. In their 2007 book, Connecting to the
Net.Generation: What Higher Education Professionals
Need to Know About Today's Students, Reynol Junco
and Jeanna Mastrodicasa found that in a survey of
7,705 college students in the US:

97% own a computer

97% have downloaded music and other media using

peer-to-peer file sharing

94% own a cell phone

76% use instant messaging and social networking sites

Fernandez, How Children Learn
 Relationship with Technology
66.6% of college students have Facebook

60% own some type of portable music and/or video

device such as an iPod

49% regularly download music and other media using

peer-to-peer file sharing

34% use websites as their primary source of news

28% author a blog and 44% read blogs

15% of IM users are logged on 24 hours a day/7 days a

week
Fernandez, How Children Learn
Special Issues of Gen Y

Independence

Communication

Technology

Instant Everything

Identity
TOP YOUTH VALUES

FAMILY
FRIENDS
COMMUNICATION
LEARNING
IDENTITY
Quo Vadis,
Principal?
Seeing the Learner
 Critical Attributes of a
Student-Centered Classroom

 Construction of learning
 Metacognition
 Educator/student
partnership in learning
 Collaborative learning
 Meaningful assessment in
real-world contexts
 Construction of Learning
Armed with the knowledge
of students’ previous
understanding of concepts,
student-centered teachers
create situations that allow
student to make
connections to new ideas.

A deep understanding
occurs when new
information offered through
higher order thinking
activities prompts new
learner to rethink and
reshape prior ideas.

IOWA CORE
Planning
Student-centered classrooms are a planned process
 Problems can be stuctured around big ideas to provide framework
with which to gather information and build knowledge.
 Make learning high-interest and personalized..”If students are
introduced to topics that interest them, they’re more likely to be
motivated” (Jones, 2007)
 Realize “students and teachers are partners in a caring relationship
 Student-centered classroom teachers plan with emphasis on the
knowledge of who their learners are both individually and
collectively.

IOWA CORE
Instructing
Student-centered instruction revolves around the needs and
abilities of the students
A student-centered school offers each child many opportunities to
learn. Teachers experiment with different approaches to learning
Teachers facilitate a variety of learning opportunities: experiential,
holistic, authentic, and challenging in a student-centered classroom.
Constructing ideas or systems is interactive (Zemelman, Daniels, &
Hyde, 2005)
“Learner-centered teachers recognize that knowledge construction is
not entirely an individual process. They listen carefully, encouraging
reflection and stimulating new connections and interpretations”
“The teacher’s role is more that of a facilitator than instructor; the
students are active participants in the learning process. The teacher
helps to guide the students, manage their activities and direct
learning. Being a teacher means helping people to learn.

IOWA CORE
Metacognition
Metacognition is thinking about
your thinking. In order for students
to be metacognitive they must know
how and know the need to think
about their thinking. In a student-
centered classroom, teachers
facilitate opportunities for students
to be metacognitive. Teachers in
learner-centered schools
understand learning to be a self-
regulated, on-going process of
making sense of the world through
concrete experience, collaborative
discourse, and reflection (Twomey
Fosnot, 2005).
IOWA CORE
 Educator/Student Partnership
in Learning
– The classroom teacher must possess a deep
understanding of the developmental characteristics
of their students as well as how students learn to be
an effective partner in the learning process. A
student-centered teacher will design learning
experiences that explicitly link essential concepts
and skills to students’ current understanding and
natural curiosity about the topic in order to scaffold
additional or deeper understandings.

IOWA CORE
ROLE OF COMMUNICATION IN
THE TEACHING-LEARNING
PROCESS
4. Most Effective

TEACHER

s s
s s
 Collaborative Learning
Teachers who rely exclusively on lecture are
missing an important brain-based principle:
people are social and the brain grows in a
social environment. New meaning comes
through social interaction, so the connection
between students is important. Cooperative
learning and collaboration should be
encouraged (Jensen, 1998).

IOWA CORE
 Authentic Assessment

When students are engaged in activities that result in

authentic and challenging applications, they are more
highly motivated to learn. A combination of real-world
assessment and the attributes of Assessment for
Learning provide student-centered classroom teachers
with the challenge of moving away from paper and
pencil exams. As teachers begin-and continue-to search
for ways to provide meaningful assessment for their
students, their instructional activities will begin to fold
into and overlap with intended assessment.
IOWA CORE
Student-centered assessment is authentic.
 Without training, most learners cannot accurately
judge what they do and don’t know.
 For collaborative group work to have an impact,
teachers must design effective learning tasks
(Hammond & Bransford, 2005).
 Performance assessments are those involving
students in activities, to demonstrate mastery of
certain performance skills or ability to create
products that meet certain standards of quality
(Stiggins, 2001)
IOWA CORE
Quo Vadis,
Principal?
Creating schools our children deserve
 The only way to survive in this ever
skyrocketing changes

is to manage, if not create, change

Quality Education requires quality
administrators
• Administrators are the
basic resource, the
scarcest resource, and
perhaps the most
precious resource in
the enterprise.

Peter Drucker
 “We can only set the
direction and provide the
vision, support endeavors
and dreams. But it is the
principals who are truly
responsible when it comes
to school outcomes and
who dictate the tempo of
progress in their respective
place of assignments.”
http://www.gov.ph/2010/09/26/deped-secretary-luistro-to-school-principals-you-are-the-department/
 • “if the General is reckless, he can be
• killed;
• if cowardly, he can be captured;
• if quick-tempered, he can easily be
• provoked;
• if sensitive to honor, he can easily be
• insulted;
• if over compassionate to people, he
• can easily be harassed.

Sun Tzu, The Art Of War

 REPUBLIC ACT NO. 9155
AN ACT INSTITUTING A FRAME WORK OF GOVERNANCE FOR
BASIC EDUCATION, ESTABLISHING AUTHORITY AND
ACCOUNTABILITY, RENAMING THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION,
CULTURE, AND SPORTS AS THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION,
AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES

CHAPTER 1
GOVERNANCE OF BASIC EDUCATION

Section 7. Powers, Duties, and Functions.

E. School Level
The school head, who may be assisted by an assistant
school head, shall be both an instructional leader and
administrative manager.
 Consistent with the national educational policies,
plans, and standards, the school heads shall have
authority, accountability, and responsibility for the
following:
1. Setting the mission, vision, goals and objectives of
the school;
2. Creating an environment within the school that is
conducive to teaching and learning;
3. Implementing the school curriculum and being
accountable for higher learning outcomes;
4. Developing the school education program and
school improvement plan;
5. Offering educational programs, projects and
services which will provide equitable opportunities
for all learners in the community;
6. Introducing new and innovative modes of
instruction to achieve higher learning outcomes.
Learners perform better
under these conditions:
1. When learners spend less than an hour in getting to school.
2. When teachers sometimes shift to the vernacular in explaining
concepts; teach the subjects they specialized in; participate in BEAM
in-service training; consult with parents; and use problem solving
and investigative projects in science, constructing shapes in math,
graphic organizing and journal writings in English, and other learning
guides, manuals, or modules.
3. When school administrators monitor and evaluateteachers
effectively and efficiently.
4. When schools have adequate facilities.
5. When the community provides sufficient financial and material
support.
Ocampo,et.al. When Reforms Don’t Transform
 Standards for School Leaders
A school leader is one who promotes the success
of all students by….

Standard 1
facilitating the development, articulation,
implementation, and stewardship of a vision
of learning that is shared and supported by
the school community.
3. Focus on standards not standard operating
procedures
Short term leadership and planning horizons tend to focus on
the immediate. For DepEd, this means procedures and
inputs as opposed to outputs. With muti-year budegtting,
this can be shifted to outcomes and by extension, standards.

4. Focus on policy not politics

The Challenge of Governance in a Large Bureaucracy (Department of Education):

Linking Governance to Performance in an Under-Performing Sector
Philippine HDN (Human Development Network) Report 2008-09
by: Juan Miguel Luz
 Standard 2
advocating nurturing, sustaining a school
culture and instructional/area program conducive
to student learning and staff professional
growth.
• Scheduling time and • Rotating roles
space for teachers to
meet and talk
• Interdependent
teaching structures
• Physical proximity
• Communication
structures
• Teacher empowerment
Promote theory-
based decision-
making in dealing
with recurrent and
potential school and
community
problems
 THE LEARNING STYLE MODEL
STIMULI ELEMENTS
SOUND LIGHT TEMPERATURE DESIGN

ENVIRONMENTAL

MOTIVATION PERSISTENCE RESPON- STRUCTURE

EMOTIONAL SIBILITY

ALONE PAIR PEERS TEAM AUTHORITY VARIETY

SOCIOLOGICAL

PERCEPTUAL INTAKE TIME MOBILITY

PHYSIOLOGICAL OF
DAY

GLOBAL ANALYTIC IMPULSIVE REFLECTIVE

PSYCHOLOGICAL
 MULTIPLE
Are there additional
intelligences? INTELLIGENCES
• Linguistic Intelligence

• Logical-Math Intelligence
Spiritual
Intelligence • Musical Intelligence

• Visual-Spatial Intelligence
Existential
• Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence
Intelligence
• Interpersonal Intelligence

• Intrapersonal Intelligence
Moral
Intelligence
• Naturalist Intelligence
RETENTION RATE LEVEL

•Reading 10%
•Hearing 20%
•Seeing 30%
•Hearing 50%
& Seeing
•Saying 70%
•Reading, 90%
Saying
& Doing
 TYPOLOGY OF SCHOOL CULTURE

Collaborative
Contrived Collegiality

Balkanization

Phase Four

Fragmented Phase Three

Individualism

Phase Two

PHASES OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Phase One
 Fragmented Culture

Employees do not have clear knowledge of the school’s vision

and sense of purpose. Teachers tend to be isolated
and individualistic. They have diverse loyalties, some loyal
to their principals and bosses, others loyal to faculty association
and still others loyal only to themselves
 Balkanized School Culture
When various groups

within the organization

operate as separate

entities and often

conflicts with each

other when major

decisions are made.

The cabals and cliques

reign supreme.
 Contrived Collegiality

A school with contrived

collegiality Is characterized

by a set of formal Specific

bureaucratic procedures.

Clear job descriptions are

available and decision-making

processes are generally

consultative and participatory

 Collaborative School Culture

The culture is deep, personal, and

enduring and is achieved through
extra ordinary effort
of individuals in the organization.

Employees have shared purpose,

and work
together to achieve the same.

This shared purpose enables

people to feel
better about they do and they tend
to work
harder.
 Standard 3
ensuring management of organization,
operations, and resources for safe,efficient,
and effective learning environment
 Ensure efficient and effective utilization
• of the school’s human and non-human resources
 Standard 4
Collaborating with families, faculty and
fellow administrators in responding to
diverse school interests and needs
and helping mobilize people.
Current Reality: Why does Philippine Education
Perform Poorly?
Lack of participation by primary stakeholders
School-based management is a major part of the solution. Yet,
communities of parents are largely uninvolved in their children’s
schooling. This has to change if performance indicators (starting with
retention and low absenteeism) are improved.

Parents – the most important stakeholders in basic education – must

bear a larger part of the direct cost of education whether this be
through nominal contribution, it must be expected of parents so that
they take a more direct role in helping their children complete the basic
education cycle, at the very least.
The Challenge of Governance in a Large Bureaucracy (Department of Education):
Linking Governance to Performance in an Under-Performing Sector
Philippine HDN (Human Development Network) Report 2008-09
by: Juan Miguel Luz
 Parents Involvement as a Driver for Better
Achievement

In 2003 through 2005, then Secretaries, de Jesus and

Abad visited the highest performing schools in the
elementary and secondary National Achivement Tests.
These schools were principally in Eastern Visayas and
the Caraga regions – two of the poorest regions in the
country. What were common to these high performing
schools? Strong parent support trough PTCAs.

The Challenge of Governance in a Large Bureaucracy (Department of Education):

Linking Governance to Performance in an Under-Performing Sector
Philippine HDN (Human Development Network) Report 2008-09
by: Juan Miguel Luz
 Parents Involvement as a Driver for Better
Achievement

Among the manifestations of support were school

feeding and school fetching (for elementary pupils) and
support for Saturday tutorials and school events (for
secondary students). In all cases, community support
to maintain and rehabilitate old and decrepit
insfrastructure was evident.

The Challenge of Governance in a Large Bureaucracy (Department of Education):

Linking Governance to Performance in an Under-Performing Sector
Philippine HDN (Human Development Network) Report 2008-09
by: Juan Miguel Luz
 “Principals are the direct link to the
community who will open the door
for more stakeholders to invest in
public education. They should be able
to engage the local decision-makers,
the private sector, the non-
government organizations so that
they can be our partners in achieving
our school improvement plans.”
Br. Armin Luistro, FSC
http://www.gov.ph/2010/09/26/deped-secretary-luistro-to-school-principals-you-are-the-department/
 Standard 5
acting with integrity, with
fairness, and in an ethical manner
 “ DepEd sees that education reforms
can only happen if the principals are
hands-on. They should also able to
inspire their constituents, to energize
the people below us and earn the
respect of those above them.
“Principals should be able to correct,
to encourage, to set the standard and
to live by example,”
Br. Armin Luistro, FSC
http://www.gov.ph/2010/09/26/deped-secretary-luistro-to-school-principals-you-are-the-department/
“What the world needs right now are
witnesses more than teachers; and if ever
the world listens to teachers, it is because
they are also witnesses.”

Pope Paul VI
• ARE WE
• Quick to Wrath, Slow to Care
• OR
• Quick to Care, Slow to Wrath
TOWARD A NEW
MODEL OF
EDUCATIONAL
LEADERSHIP
Engagement
• Ability to recognize an
issue or situation that has
no clear definition, no
simple cause and no
simple answer.
• Convening the
appropriate people in the
system and facilitating
their conversations and
learning
Senge, Schools that Learn
 Systems Thinking

• The ability to
recognize the
hidden dynamics of
complex systems
and to find leverage

Senge, Schools that Learn

Leading Learning
• The ability to model a
“learner-centered” as
opposed to
“authority-centered”
approach, to all
problems inside and
outside the
classroom

Senge, Schools that Learn

Self-Awareness

• The ability to know the

impact one is having on
people and the system
and how that impact
has changed over time.

Senge, Schools that Learn

 Let us help
young people
learn how to
create the
lives they
truly want to
create.
 References
Senge, Peter (2010). Schools that Learn. Doubleday Publishing Group.
Wong-Fernandez, Barbara. How Children Learn. Talk delivered at Far Easter
University. February, 2011
Reyes, Flordeliza. Talk delivered at De LA Salle University. Ocotber, 2006.
RA 9155.
Ocampo, et. al. When Reforms Don’t Transform
 www.gov.ph/k-12
kto12@deped.gov.ph