Chapter I

The Research Problem

Introduction

Almost all people in this world know that teaching is the most honorable

profession. As stated by Lim, Caubic, and Casihan (2014) the teachers’ role is to

inspire the students to reach their potential and be functional members of the

society as well as develop the knowledge, habits, skills, and values that would

prepare them for the competitive world because according to Aslam et al. (2010)

teachers are not only building blocks of higher education but also of the nation as

a whole and they always prove to be an essential human resource. It is indeed a

big responsibility and a goal for the teachers because they are not just shaping

one student or a class but they are shaping the whole world. As a professional

ready to play the role expected for the teacher, he/she should be academically

well-prepared, competent in both subject matter and classroom methodologies,

and highly motivated to keep on improving himself/herself as a science teacher,

for example (Salandanan, 1985). According to Torralba (1998) going to the

reality of what some people think it takes to start teaching well, it has something

to do with what should the teacher acquire or should have acquired in grade

school, in high school, in college and even before they launch themselves to

teach. Therefore, quality of teacher education program in universities is important

for future teachers.

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Part of the teacher education curriculum is the practice teaching course

and also considered as a pre-requisite for graduation. In the Philippines, the

Commission of Higher Education (CHED) issued Memorandum Order No. 30, s.

2004 known as Revised Policies for Undergraduate Teacher Education

Curriculum which serve as the basis of the New Teacher Education Curriculum

(NTEC). One of the salient features of NTEC is the offering of twelve (12) units

Field Study courses or Experiential Learning Courses. Of the twelve (12) units in

the Field Study, six (6) units is on the Practice Teaching. The Experiential

Learning Courses (ELCs) are considered indispensable components of the

NTEC. This is pursuant to the National Competency-Based Teacher Standards

or NCBTS (revised as PPST or the Philippine Professional Standards for

Teachers under the Department of Education Order No. 42, s. 2017), which is

the core of the Teacher Education and Development Program (TEDP) of the

government (Experiential Learning Courses Handbook, 2006).

Leyte Normal University (LNU) is one of the universities in Region 8 that

produces professional teachers. In fact, the goal of the LNU College of Education

(COE) is to produce world class educators and education leaders imbued with

ideals, aspirations, values, and traditions of the Philippine life that can adopt to

the challenges of the world. Following the Memorandum Order No. 30, s. 2004

issued by CHED, LNU offers six (6) units of Practice Teaching course and is

taken by the fourth year students in their first or second semester. In line with the

Student Teaching Practice/Student Internship, the DepEd issued an order stating

the Guidelines on the Deployment of Student teachers (DepEd Order No. 39, s.
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2005). It encompasses the guides and roles of student teachers, Teacher

Education Institution (TEI), university or college student supervisor, cooperating

schools and cooperating teacher.

According to Okorie (1997) the professional education of teachers cannot

be validated without adequate preparation of prospective teachers for dynamic

roles in today’s schools through practice. One of the important aspects of the

educational system is the teacher education. It involves applying and bridging the

gap between educational theories and practice. It serves as an opportunity for

pre-service teachers to be exposed to the realities of teaching and professional

activities in the field of education. For teachers to teach competently and

efficiently, they must be adequately exposed to both the academic (theoretical)

and practical aspects of teaching. Teaching practice is a period of time during

which a student teacher is assigned to a specific institution; primary or secondary

school for a supervised teaching as one of the requirements for graduation and

effective teaching experience. The aim of the teaching practice exercise

according to Ogonor and Badmus (2006) are: (1) to provide the teacher trainee

some type of pre-service training which serves as an opportunity to be exposed

to the realities of teaching and performance of professional activities, (2) it

provides opportunities for students to test theories learned and ideas in the

classroom as they come in contact for the first time with real life situations, (3) it

provides trainees the opportunity to utilize the various teaching methods in actual

classrooms/school conditions under the constant supervision of competent and

experienced teachers, and (4) it exposes student teachers to professional

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activities, which are part of the teacher roles in schools. Furthermore, the

teaching practice exercise enables the students to be more familiar with variety

of instructional materials and resources, evaluate and select those materials

appropriate for the objectives in a teaching unit or lesson (Afolabi, 2000).

Anupama (2009) summed this up by stating that the positive side of the whole

exercise of teaching practice is to give sense of accomplishment student-

teachers. They learn to take responsibility, gain confidence and improve upon

their classroom management skills.

Pre-service teachers sometimes consider practice teaching to be

frightening and demoralizing and some of the challenges affect their ability to

accumulate maximum benefits from the practice teaching (Ranjan, 2013). This is

supported by Abu Sharbain & Tan (2012) who averred that most novice teachers

encounter shock when they have to combat the challenges of everyday teaching

and managing in school. Moreover, Ballantyne (2004) also stated that student

teachers come to the field site with variety of concerns and feelings. Abu

Sharbain & Tan (2012) found that pre-service teachers may also experience

conflict between expectations of the role they are prepared to play and the reality

of the actual work.

In 2010, the National Research Council (NRC) reviewed reports from the

National Academy of Education’s Committee on Teacher Education and

identified field and clinical experiences as one of the important features in

teacher preparation programs that needs an utmost attention. Since LNU deploys

pre-service teachers every year, the researchers aim to identify the challenges
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encountered and coping mechanisms of the Bachelor of Secondary Education

(BSEd) Pre-service Sciences teachers of Leyte Normal University for the school

year 2018-2019.

The study serves as the awareness of the pre-service teachers of LNU.

They will describe their experiences during the practice teaching. The

researchers believe that this study will be a great help to the next Science pre-

service teachers so they will have a glimpse of being a pre-service teacher and in

the real world of teaching. Moreover, this study will serve as a mirror on the

performance of the university in terms of training education students. By this,

LNU may make adjustments on the pre-service training thereby helping future

practice teachers become better prepared.

Research Questions

This study aims to describe the challenges encountered and coping

mechanisms of Bachelor of Secondary Education (BSEd) pre-service teachers of

LNU year 2018-2019. This study seeks to answer the following questions:

1. What are the challenges encountered by the pre-service science

teachers?

2. How did these challenges affect their teaching practice?

3. How did the pre-service teachers cope with these challenges?

4. What suggestions were given to better solve these challenges in the

future?
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Scope and Limitation of the Study

This study will include selected BSEd Pre-service Teachers who undwent

the Practice Teaching Course for the school year 2018-2019. The participants

will be coming from LNU. They must have taken two (2) shifts of Practice

Teaching in order to better state their experiences.

Significance of the study

The result of this study will be a great help to the administrators, teachers,

and students.

To the Administrators. The findings will help the administrators to monitor the

practice teaching course and make solutions to the problems that the students

encounter.

To the Cooperating Teachers. This study will serve as a channel that would

help the cooperating teachers understand the concerns, feedbacks and

suggestions of the student teachers.

Pre-Service Teachers. The result of this study will help increase pre-service

teachers’ awareness regarding the true situation in the field of teaching and this

would help them speak out what they have experienced during their internship.

To the researchers. This study will be a great help to the next researchers who

wish to make further research about practice teaching course. The information

and data gathered will serve as a guide to fully understand the nature of practice

teaching.
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Theoretical Framework

“Experience teaches only the teachable” this is according to Aldous

Huxley, learning content matters for years is not enough to gain enough

knowledge, it takes experiences to fully understand the nature of a profession.

Practice teaching is one of the important experience as necessary to understand

the nature of teaching.

This study is anchored on the theories of Social Learning of Albert

Bandura and Theory of Connectionism of Edward Thorndike.

Albert Bandura an influential Social Cognitive Psychologist who is perhaps

best known for his Social Learning Theory, the concept of self-efficacy and his

famous bobo doll experiment (Cherry, 2018). Social Learning Theory is often

described as the ‘bridge’ between traditional learning theory (i.e., behaviorism)

and the cognitive approach. This is because it focuses on how mental (cognitive)

factors are involved in learning as noted by Saul McLeod (2016). As stated by

Bandura (1987), learning would be exceedingly laborious, not to mention

hazardous, if people had to rely solely on the effects of their own actions to

inform them what to do. Fortunately, most human behavior is learned

observationally through modelling: from observing others one forms an idea of

how new behaviors are performed, and on later occasions this coded information

serves as a guide for action. The work of Bandura (1977) showed that modeling

is a more efficient way of learning than trial and error. In modeling, the apprentice

observes the master demonstrating how to do different parts of the task. By

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observing others, one forms an idea of how new behaviors are performed, and

on later occasions this coded information serves as a guide for action. It implies

that students often learn a great deal by observing other people and that

modelling provides a faster and more efficient means for teaching new behavior

(Lucas & Corpuz, 2007). Similarly, the pre-service teacher learned from the

model which is the cooperating teacher. The pre-service teacher is given a two-

day observation to his/her cooperating teacher before having the actual teaching.

In the process, the pre-service teacher observes very carefully on how the

cooperating manage the class, how does the lesson was delivered and values

that he/she integrate in the lesson. The learned observations can be used to

enhance the teaching practice of the pre-service teachers. Thus, what the pre-

service observes may have a great or less effect on his/her teaching practice that

can be manifested through his/her actions toward a certain event or phenomena.

Thorndike’s theory on Connectionism, states that learning has taken place

when a strong connection or bond between stimulus and response is formed. He

came up with the three primary laws: the law of effect, the law of exercise and

the law of readiness (Lucas & Corpuz, 2014). This study will only focus on the

third law. According to Lucas and Corpuz (2014) law of readiness states that the

more readiness the learner has to respond to the stimulus, the stronger will be

the bond between them. Moreover, Kemjika (1996) noted that learner finds

learning easy or difficult due to his attributes of readiness such as his previous

knowledge, attitude towards rewards and punishment, emotional and intellectual

development. He concluded that learners differ in their ability to learn due to

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readiness. Furthermore, human learning proceeds more rapidly when the learner

is ready to learn. The readiness may he physical or psychological. When an

individual learner realizes that the outcome of his action is enjoyable and

beneficial, his readiness to act is boosted. The school and the teacher, in

particular, have a task of ensuring that learners view school activities as a

beneficial venture. Teaching and learning must be made to be very attractive and

satisfying to the learner at all times. The national policy on education (2013),

supports that educational activities should be learner centered for maximum

development and fulfilment of the learner and that teaching should he practical,

activity-based and experiential. These conditions are tailored towards building

greater readiness in learners (Amadi, 2018). In connection, before a pre-service

teacher will be launched into the field, they must undertake the pre-requisite

Professional Education (ProfEd) courses that will help them be prepared for the

actual teaching.

Definition of Terms

Challenges- problems encountered by the practice teachers.

Cooperating School- refers to the school where the student-teachers undergo

off campus teaching.

Cooperating teachers- the assigned teachers from the cooperating schools

where the practice teachers trained for the real world of teaching.
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Practice Teaching- refers to the process of undergoing teaching field training of

the Pre-Service Science Teachers.

Pre-Service Teachers- refers to the fourth year BSED students with

specializations of Biological Sciences and Physical Sciences who underwent two

shifts of practice teaching. They are also referred to as practice teachers, interns

or student-teachers in this study.