Movie Review: “Mga Munting Tinig”

By: Noedy D. Balasa

SYNOPSIS

Mga Munting Tinig is an award-winning Philippine film about a young small-town teacher which is directed and produced by Gil Portes. It was filmed on location in Quezon Province with the Filipino actresses Alessandra de Rossi, Gina Alajar, Amy Austria, and Dexter Doria. The screenplay was also written by Gil Portes with Adolfo Alix, Jr. The film has received acclaim from critics both locally and internationally.

Melinda (Alessandra del Rossi) is a new substitute teacher at the Malawig Elementary School, located in a poor remote barrio. As a young university graduate from the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila, her family expects her to look for work abroad, but in her idealism she takes on a challenging job in the provincial public school, which lacks resources and has corrupt personnel. The heavy monsoon rains and the nearby NPAs also add to her difficulties.

The children are indifferent to their studies, having been affected by the hopelessness around them. Melinda tries to motivate them by capitalizing on their interest and talent in singing. She takes advantage of a funding opportunity to enter them in a choral contest. She encounters some resistance, however, from the school administration and from the parents of her students. Furthermore, the death of one of the choral group’s members at the hands of the NPA casts a pall on their once joyful preparations. Melinda, however, constantly tries to rise above these challenges.

MORAL LESSONS

1. Every person has the right to dream and have their own ambition in life which they will seek to fulfill in the course of their life through the use of their talents.

2. Everyone has the right to dream and make goals in life. It cannot be hindered by anyone because we always have the power to make them come true. And you should not listen to someone that is putting you down; so that you would succeed and be able to do anything you want. We are all people living in this big world, and so, we have the right to soar high in life

3. Even though you start small, as long as you have the people you love with you, you will be successful. If, there will be trials then you must work together to pull through.

4. Teamwork is one of the best ways to accomplish a hard task. When some members in a group does not help, there could be some problems and will waste the precious time that was given to you.

5. Problems that we encounter should not hinder us from doing our task rather it should motivate us and make us stronger each and every day that we look ahead to our goals.

Behavioral Engineering in Classroom Management

A Reflection Paper

By: Noedy D. Balasa

 To the Professional Reading of:

“Contingency Management in the Classroom”

Written By: B. F. Skinner

An Introduction of the Writer

          B. F. Skinner (1904-1990), is an American psychologist. Burrhus Frederic Skinner was born in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania, and educated at Harvard University, where he received (1931) a Ph.D. degree. He joined the Harvard faculty in 1948. Skinner became the foremost exponent in the U.S. of the behaviorist school of psychology, in which human behavior is explained in terms of physiological responses to external stimuli. He also originated programmed instruction, a teaching technique in which the student is presented a series of ordered, discrete bits of information, each of which he or she must understand before proceeding to the next stage in the series.

            A variety of teaching machines have been designed that incorporate the ideas of Skinner. Among his important works are Behavior of Organisms (1938), Walden Two (1948), and The Technology of Teaching (1968). In Beyond Freedom and Dignity (1971), Skinner advocated mass conditioning as a means of social control. Later works include Particulars of My Life (1976) and Reflections on Behaviorism and Society (1978).

An Overview of the Literary Piece

            This piece that I have reviewed is entitled, “Contingency Management in the Classroom” was a speech delivered by B. F. Skinner at Western Washington State College on October 2, 1969 in connection with the dedication of Miller Hall. It was prepared with the help of a Career Award from the National Institutes of Mental Health.

            B. F. Skinner in his speech asserts the importance of the reason behind education. He asks what drives students to go to school. In due course he stresses on determining which is more effective in classroom management: the punitive method or the permissive approach. Delving further he emphasizes the importance of understanding operant behavior, the use of reinforcement and contingencies of reinforcement to make the students learn. With the development of this topic he also capitulates between the lines the foundations of effective teaching as to the three levels of effectivity: the school, teacher and student level factors.

Though Skinner did not mention these things verbatim the point is still made for present and future teachers. He uses terms often used in psychology throughout his speech but he makes the listeners and readers understand these words by the use of synonyms, illustrating examples and analysis of information. The speech is in essay form that revolves in a core idea: classroom management.

The piece is sensitive to the social issues of his time whereby he relates the news of his time to the occurrences in history. He makes concrete explanations of abstract ideas through the effective use of the most stirring social issues that goes along the tip of his main idea.

Thorough discussion is evident in this literary work but it has been quite observed that the manner of exposition is quite not chronologically arranged. The author starts with a discussion of the driving force behind education and he progresses into the topic of classroom management which is quite not clearly linked to his introduction. Some technical terms present can also be confusing and boring. All I all the work is excellent!

The Core Ideas Presented

“We are on the verge of a new educational method—a new pedagogy—in which the teacher will emerge as a skilled behavioral engineer.”

            Skinner views the modern teacher, you and me, too be well versed in the arts and science of molding students through the use of psychology. He says that a would-be teacher should have the chance to see learning take place or produce visible learning himself. Saying this he became a patron of John Dewey’s principle evident in teacher training today as the Experiential Learning or Field Study Courses.

             We teachers should inculcate the value of basic psychology into our profession because the new method has abandoned the traditional ways and is becoming more progressive through the passing of years.

            “Education is primarily concerned with the transmission of a culture…the classroom is a community with a culture of its own…the sooner we find effective means of social control, the sooner we shall produce a culture in which man’s potential is fully realized.”

            The teacher is undoubtedly charged with the most critical burden in a society: the transmission of culture. The teacher should ask himself then:

1.      What culture will I transmit to my students?

2.      What good will he/she learn from this culture?

3.      What fruits will this culture bear?

A teacher who shows absenteeism transmits a culture of tardiness and absenteeism. The child will be inefficient and teaching will be made useless while the child’s culture will destabilize his future and that of his nation; getting fired from work he becomes a social burden that topples the economy. A teacher who shows bad deeds transmits corrupt culture and destroys morality while a well mannered teacher invests on a glorious culture that brings about social development.

The classroom is a community. It is the image of our society as a whole. What we see in classrooms are the small-scale of our society. What students see in a society is mirrored to the classroom while what they show in their classrooms today will be their attitudes tomorrow. Corrupt the classroom culture and you destroy the society. Build a moral classroom environment and make the society better.

Skinner believes that man’s potential can only be fully realized in a society that has a culture of social control and so do I. If we have means to make people stop doing immoral acts at a wide scale social dimension then we can create a society where man becomes fully effective and efficient since he will have no worries.

“Sow a thought and reap an act;

Sow an act and reap a habit;

Sow a habit and reap a character;

Sow a character and reap a destiny.”

The Means to Achieving Our Goals

            Skinner believes that a “driving force” is necessary to make students learn inside the classroom. He says that in the traditional scenario this “driving force” is present in the form of punitive methods while in the permissive scenario this “driving force” is present in the form of either stressing the long-term advantages of education or bringing a real life situation in the classroom. He further asserts that these measures fail because these are not enough in giving students the drive to study and learn.

            Effective and efficient teaching conducts a valid transfer of learning. To achieve this, Skinner asserts the use of operant behavior. The principle of operant behavior indicates that human behavior consists of emitted responses which are voluntary in nature and learning amounts to the change in operant rate through the use of reinforcements. Reinforcements are stimulus that strengthens the behavior which it is made contingent. To apply operant behavior effectively in a classroom this should be implemented in the three levels of building effective schools.

What should be done in the three levels of building effective schools?

       I.            School Level Factors

In this level there should be a guaranteed and viable curriculum that exhibits a good program of instruction and well defined behavioral objectives from the three domains of learning.

It is to be remembered always that a good program, according to B. F. Skinner:

·         Shapes new forms of behavior under the control of the right stimuli

·         Holds the student’s attention

·         Contains its own drive and reasons for learning (clarified through its objectives)

·         Clarifies the progress based on a set of standards

·         Is definite in size

·         Makes the student think and work right

    II.            Teacher Level Factors

In this level the multifunctional teacher should come to life. The effective teacher should rise to show his efficiency and professionalism. He should assume the various roles that he has inside the classroom. Among these are being the source and channel of learning, the examiner, the parent, and the governor of the classroom community.

 III.            Student Level Factors

In the student level factor it should be remembered that the students is a child or teenager that has some interests in some things that can be used as reinforcements. What drives learning into him is good interaction with the teacher and his peers together with a comfortable classroom environment.

Where am I in this picture?

            I am a student teacher and if I want to pursue the path to becoming a teacher I should do all it takes to learn as much as I can in this exposure to the field for B. F. Skinner says, “Everyone who intends to be a teacher should have the chance to see learning take place or produce visible learning himself.” This is my chance I should try to witness this path he says.

            For I also believe in what Aristotle have said, “what we have to learn to do, we learn by doing.” Ron Sebring also said, “Learn from other people’s mistakes because you won’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”

 

Understanding UbD through a UbD Approach

By: Noedy D. Balasa

What is Understanding by Design or UbD to you? Is it significant? How significant is it to a student like you? Can you imagine the situation of secondary students in their classrooms who experience UbD now?
Learning a lesson through UbD is like eating a banana without peeling it or harvesting rice without sowing it first. It’s vague, isn’t it? How can you eat banana without removing the skin? Where will you get the grains of rice that you will harvest if you have not sown it yet?
Can you see how vague, UbD is?
In theory these examples can have answers. And if you have thought about the questions deeply you will know the answer. The banana can be eaten from the inside. Just look at the ant—he bores a hole at the skin and eats the banana from the inside. In UbD, you will be able to analyze the questions well and come to think that peeling a banana is not the only way of eating the banana. In UbD you can harvest rice without planting it. For example, you can say that you will still be able to do this because rice grew in your vacant lot all by itself or someone planted rice for you. That is how teachers do UbD. They invite students to develop critical thinking.

What is UbD?
Grant Wiggins, Denise Wilbur, and Jay McTighe, the people behind the original concepts of UbD even said, “UbD is a way of thinking purposefully about curricular plan¬ning and school reform, a set of helpful design tools, and design standards -- not a program or recipe.”
The end goal of UbD is understanding and the ability to transfer learning. The evidence of understanding is revealed through performance when learners transfer knowledge, skills, and values effectively us¬ing one or more Facets of Learning. In UbD, these facets include explaining, interpreting, applying, shifting per¬spectives, empathizing, and self-assessment.
UbD is composed of three stages for a teacher: Goals (setting various concepts in order of their importance), Valid Evidence (conduct of assessments through the use of GRASPS) and Aligned Learning Activities (making the backwards design learning plan using WHERETO). For the students, UbD is a series of four simultaneous phases which are explore, firm-up, deepen and transfer.

How to teach UbD?
A teacher prepares first his UbD lesson by dropping first the three stages of UbD.
In the Philippines, the Department of Education has already prepared sets of teaching guides specified for each subject area and year level so planning for a UbD lesson will not be that hard because the teacher will now simply read the teaching guide and prepare related instructional materials that he would use in the conduct of his lesson.
He is then ready to implement his lesson on the classroom.

Hop into a UbD Lesson
“Our lesson today is about the operational definition of Biology and its branches of disciplines along with the sub disciplines and scope of each,” that is how a teacher intones the start of a monotonous and boring lesson in the traditional lecture-discussion method. But in UbD the intro is different like say for example:
“OK, class… group yourselves into of five members at the count of five… 1… 2… 3… 4… 5… Now, brainstorm among your group on: (1) what do you already know about biology?, (2) what you want to learn about biology?, and (3) what you think are the concepts we will discuss in biology?”
After several minutes of brainstorming, the students will be given time to prepare for a report in front of the entire class and submit an individualized written output on their activity. Later on the entire class would be very busy listening to various ideas about the lesson. This is what occurs in Phase 1: Explore where schema is activated and background experiences drawn out.
Then there will be a new activity after that, the teacher will either show a film, give a lecture, design a laboratory experiment, allow for experiencing a simulation and many other interactive classroom strategies which will make the students learn the concepts in a fast manner. This is Phase 2: Firm-Up where students learn the knowledge, skill and value from the lesson.
Next is Phase 3: Deepen where students plan the most suitable performance activity that they will show in their culminating program using the knowledge, skill and value that they have learned from the lesson. Using Biology as the core lesson, they plan for a field trip in a Biology laboratory facility where there will be examples of the disciplines in Biology.
Last is Phase 4: Transfer where students apply, synthesize, analyze and evaluate their knowledge, skill, and value that they have learned from the lesson through implementing the plan of performance activity in their culminating program. In our case, they would attend a field trip in a Biology laboratory facility which they have planned.

UbD reflects a “continuous improvement” approach to design and learning. The results of curriculum design and use of assessment results, quality of student work, and degree of learner engagement inform the teacher of the necessary adjustments, improvements of the design as well as the achievement, which is always possible. Tools are provided for self-assessment and adjustment in UbD.

Student Teacher's Prayer

By: NOEDY D. BALASA

Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us.

Titus 2:7-8

Almighty and ever-loving God,
Majestic Creator of the Universe
Glorious Savior of Mankind
Sanctifier and Giver of Life;

We adore and praise you
In all our days we sing of your Name
We magnify what you have done
And we crumble in your might;

We ask pardon for all our sins
Especially those that most offended you
Forgive us of our failures
And we promise that we shall avoid doing sin again;

We thank you for this life you have given,
For another day to see the light of the sun again,
For providing us food for our soul and body
So that we may be ever ready to serve you in heaven;

Lord, thank you for this chance to learn
Thank you for giving me a chance to teach
Thank you for giving me good mentors
And very cooperative students;

Thank you for giving me my classmates and friends
Who help me when I’m down
Thank you for giving my family
Especially my parents who support me;

We pray that you give us good health
In mind and in body so that we may serve you
Guide our parents who work to support us
Make them grow in your loving care;

Lord, let me be just what the students’ need.

If they need someone to trust, let me be trustworthy.
If they need sympathy, let me sympathize.
If they need love for they truly need love,
Let me love them in full measure.

Let me not anger easily, Lord but let me be just.
Permit my justice to be tempered in your mercy.
When I stand before them, Lord,
Let me look strong and good and honest and loving.

Help me to counsel the anxious,
Crack the covering of the shy,
Temper the rambunctious with a gentle attitude.
Permit me to teach only the truth.

Help me to inspire them so that learning will not cease at the classroom door.
Let the lessons they learn make their lives fruitful and happy.
And, Lord, let me bring them to you.
Teach them through me to love you.

God grant me wisdom, creativity and love.
With wisdom, I may look to the future
And see the effect that my teaching will have on these children
And thus adapt my methods to fit the needs of each one.

With creativity, I can prepare new and interesting projects
That can challenge my students and expand their minds
To set higher goals and dream loftier dreams

With love, I can praise my students for jobs well done
And encourage them to get up and go when they fall.

God, I have come to the frightening conclusion.
I am the decisive element in the classroom.
It is my personal approach that creates the climate.
It is my daily mood that makes the weather.

As a teacher I possess tremendous power
To make a child's life miserable or joyous
I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration.
I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal.

In all situations it is my response that decides
Whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated
And a child humanized or de-humanized.
Grant me the insight and patience to make the right decisions
To model Jesus in my classroom

Father,
As I reach reluctantly for the top card,
Let me also reach for your promise:
"If any one of you lacks wisdom,
Let him ask of God."

We, pray to you Oh Lord hear our prayers
With Mary, our Mother
Through the intercession of Christ your Son
Amen.