Republic of the Philippines

Cebu Normal University

Osmeň a Boulevard, Cebu City, 6000 Philippines
College of Teacher Education
Graduate School

Unified Midterm and Final Examination

in
Ed 4001: Philo-Social Foundations of Education
Due: June 12, 2021 10: 00 am

Submitted by:

Hanelen V. Dada, LPT

Submitted to:
Gary B. Lapiz, BA, PoS, BPA, DSPED, LPT, MAEd, MPA, DPA
Name: Hanelen V. Dada Date of Examination: June 5, 2021
Class Schedule: 8:00-11:00 AM Score: _________________

HUMAN BEING AND SOCIETY

The unprecedented disruptions by the Covid-19 pandemic have brought dramatic

loss to human beings and presented crucial challenges to society. Among the social

institutions' crisis, education has been hugely affected, which led to the closures of schools

and universities, both public and private. In connection to that, a sudden switch of teaching

modality happened. Teaching is moving to online and modular learning on an untested and

unprecedented scale. Delivering teaching instruction is switching to online and modular,

which challenges the teachers to deepen the subject material. Providing written

assessments to students creates trial and error and doubts if they answer them accurately.

Evaluating student's performance produces difficulty to the teachers in providing

corrective feedback to students for better learning of the desired outcome. These

dilemmas yielded a massive shock to the environment, educators, students, and institutions

that affected the social condition, life, teaching, and learning of human beings and society

across the globe.

The abrupt transition from the traditional learning environment to online and

modular classes brought particular challenges and stress for many teachers, students, and

sectors of education who prefer face-to-face learning. Online learning is considered a

weaker option that provides a lower quality education than the original classroom setup
(Hodges, 2020). For instance, the teachers encountered difficulties providing teaching

instruction to students because they have to deal with the new teaching process. The use of

digital platforms such as Google Classroom, Zoom, Google Meet, Moodle, LMS, Messenger,

Facebook, and others are created and utilized to cater to the prerequisite skills of the

learners in learning. In online learning, the teachers struggle to conduct online classes via

Zoom and Google Meet synchronously. Sometimes, in the middle of the discussion, the

teachers suddenly disconnect from the session because of the internet connectivity issue.

The same dilemma is encountered by the learners in every synchronous class, except those

teachers and students who have stability in internet connection. As a result, the teachers

recorded their lessons and uploaded them into Google Classroom and other digital learning

programs to still provide instructional learning materials. They even uploaded videos,

worksheets, and PowerPoint Presentations of the lessons to meet the learning needs of the

students. Kasrekar 2020 presented the perplexity of delivering instruction to students

during online classes because the teachers are in the middle of coping with the new

pedagogical skills and digital literacy gap. Despite the climactic predicaments of online

learning, the teachers continue supporting the academic growth and development of the

students.

On the other hand, providing instruction using modular learning is also a problem

for teachers and students. This learning modality addressed those schools in rural areas

where internet connection is not accessible for a fully online class. One of the challenges

presented in modular instruction is the reproduction of the designed modules due to the

unavailability of printers and insufficient learning materials. These situations burden the

teachers because they caused the delay in printing and releasing the learning modules.
Sometimes, there is a case that the modules provided by the DepEd Office are incomplete,

so the teachers looked for other instructional materials to supplement the intended

modules. If there is none, they are obliged to create a Self-Learning Home Task (SLHT) to

cater to the essential needs of the learners. Regardless of the different obstacles, the

teachers took responsibility to provide and distribute the self-paced modules to all

students every week in their respective schools. Modular instruction encourages the

learners to learn at their own pace and develops discipline and a sense of responsibility in

completing all the tasks. Learners engage themselves in self-study in which they are

learning to learn and understand the concepts meaningfully with little or no assistance

from their parents or guardians (Nardo, M.T.B, 2017). However, delivering modular

instruction has adversities to the students. They have less self-motivation due to a lack of

interaction between the teachers. There is no actual discussion and sharing of ideas that

the students used to happen in the teaching and learning process. Besides, live feedback

and comments from the teachers are no longer present that produced passive learning. So,

the teachers conduct home visitation to check the learner's progress, especially those who

need remediation and assistance (Llego, n.d.).

Student assessment plays a fundamental role in the learning of the students and the

pedagogical design of the teachers. This assessment refers to written tests and quizzes

provided by the teachers. It assessed how far the learners understood the desired learning

contents (Wiggins and McTighe, 2005, pg. 18). During the online and modular classes,

students are struggling to answer the provided tests on their own. They need help in

understanding the questions. So, teachers faced and answered a lot of queries from the

students to address their learning needs. Less supervision and communication to students
in answering the tests resulted in stress, pressure, and exhaustion, especially when they

don't comprehend the learning material. In online learning, teachers have difficulty

measuring the reliability of the scores in the test. They have doubts if the student's outputs

and answers are based on their understanding or from google. Some cases involved the

parents and tutors who answered the tests instead of the learners without guiding and

teaching them in understanding the subject material. The same situation happened in a

modular class in which not all students are determined to comply with the tasks and

answer the tests on the modules. Some learners did them for formality purposes, and

others did for compliance and the sake of their grades. They also copied the answers from

other classmates without reading the modules. The essence of having meaningful learning

is absent since they don't comprehend and internalize the subject content. So the teachers

manifested that the profound connection of student's knowledge in instructional materials

is lost. Providing assessment is challenging and stressful for both teachers and learners.

There are things to consider such as, cheating and trustworthiness of their works. Cheating

is circulating online and modular classes that lead to academic dishonesty and unreliable

score on tests. This concern is not lenient on the teacher's part to monitor who is taking a

test and how it is supposed to answer in online and modular classes compared to face-to-

face learning (Watson & Sottile, 2010).

Evaluating student's performance is the last example. In online and modular classes,

students performed the tasks at home unlike, in the traditional setup which they could

present them in front of their teachers and classmates. The learners demonstrated the

tasks through performance videos, individual demonstrations, documentation, and other

performing activities that assessed the desired learning outcome. The teachers evaluate the
strengths and weaknesses of the student's output through guided rubrics and criteria. This

performance-based assessment is a vital tool of any teaching and learning activity. It

manifests not only the knowledge on the subject material but also displays the skills and

abilities of the students on a day-to-day basis (Pierce, 2002). The teachers struggle to

provide specific feedback to students regarding their outputs and performances due to the

new setup of the teaching process. Learners couldn't receive actual interaction and

feedback on time and in an observable manner due to unavoidable limitations of both

online and modular instruction. Feed backing is essential since it supports and improves

the learning of students. Through students' performances and outputs, the teacher could

assess themselves if the teaching instruction and learning materials are effective and

suitable to the learning needs and preferences of the students. Evaluating students'

performances also provide immediate feedback for teachers to shape their teaching

practices according to the learning styles of their students.

The smashing difficulties encountered by the teachers, students, and institutions

during this new normal of education push every one of them to persevere education.

Administering instructional materials to students in the middle of a crisis is already

complicated yet meaningful. Providing a written assessment to the learners creates

uncertainty but somehow measured the intended learning outcomes. Evaluating student's

performance shows less interaction, feedback, and live exposure of students yet enhances

the content knowledge and pedagogical skills of learning. The new educational panorama

strategizes and accelerates the diversity of teaching methods to cater to the essential needs

of students, both online and modular learning. The educational administrations require

series of measures such as professional training and seminars to facilitate the current
demands of the new normal. These predicaments of education presented as global

challenges which need a viable solution for the higher institutions not to disrupt learning.

Since the DepEd and private institutions shared the same goal that no matter what

happens, learning continues, and no child is left behind.