Chapter 2:

Learning Plans in
the Context of the
21 Century
st

JOBELLE T. MOJICA
Objectives
By the end of the lesson, you must be able to:

a. Evaluate sample learning plans in the

context of the 21st Century classroom; and

a. Create a one-week learning plan for a specific

social studies learning content.
1. The K-12 Curriculum
Framework
The implementation of the K to 12 Curriculum of the Department of Education
paved the way for the enhancement of the Teacher Education Curriculum of
the Commission on Higher Education (CHED). The salient features of the K to
12 Curriculum have been thoroughly considered to ensure that all the courses
in the teacher education program will meet the demands of the 21st century
classrooms. One of the considerations is the need to implement the following
salient features of the curriculum through integrating technologies for teaching
and learning. The use of technologies is done in the different levels of learning
and in teaching the various fields of specialization.
Strengthening Early Childhood Education
(Universal Kindergarten)

With the Universal Kindergarten program of the

Department, every Filipino child is expected to have
access to early childhood education. This access can
be facilitated using technological tools that area
readily available to the school for teacher’s use.
 Making the Curriculum Relevant to Learners
(Contextualization and Enhancement)

Research shows that learners will value a curriculum that is relevant to

their lives. Students are often heard saying, “Do I need to know these to
live a meaningful life?” and so on.

Sara Bernard (2010) stressed that students need to have a personal

connection to a lesson material that can be done through engaging them
emotionally or through connecting the information with that which they
already know. This she calls “Give It Context, and Make it Count.” in the
different levels of learning and in teaching the various fields of
specialization.
Use suspense and keep it fresh
Drop hints about a new learning unit before you
reveal what it might be, leave gaping pauses in your
speech, change seating arrangements, and put up new
and relevant posters or displays; all these can activate
emotional signals and keep students interest piqued.
Make it student-directed
Give students a choice of assignments on a
particular topic, or ask them to design one of their
own. “When students are involved in designing
the lesson, they better understand the goal of the
lesson and become more emotionally invested in
and attached to the learning outcomes.”
Connect lesson to their lives and what
they already know
Taking the time to brainstorm about what students
already know and would like to learn about a topic
helps them to create goals. This also helps teachers
see the best points of departure for new ideas.
Making cross-curricular connections also helps
solidify those neural loops.
Provide utility value
Utility value provides relevance first by piquing
students and by telling them the content is
important to their future goals; it then continues by
showing or explaining how the content fits into their
plans for the future. This helps students realize the
content is not just interesting but also worth
knowing.
Build relatedness
Relatedness answers the question, “What have
these to do with me?” It is an inherent need
student to feel close to the significant people in
their lives, including teachers. Relatedness is
seen by many as having non- academic and
academic sides.
To be able to apply the tips recommended by various
experts and to allow students to realize the value of
their curriculum, technological tools can be used. 21st
Century learners are expected to be demonstrating
21st Century competencies such as collaboration,
digital literacy, critical thinking, and problem solving to
be able to thrive in this world (Rich, 2014).
Building Proficiency (Mother-tongue
Based Multilingual Education)

To be able to promote the child’s dominant language and to use it as a

language of instruction, maximum use of technological tools is highly
encouraged. Currently, a lot of teachers and schools are into
developing learning materials to be able to implement the MTB-MLE
program properly especially that there is a dearth of printed and e-
materials in the mother-tongue of the students. Mother Tongue is used
in instruction and learning materials of other learning areas. The
learners retain their ethnic identity, culture, heritage and values.
Ensuring Integrated and Seamless
Learning (Spiral Progression)
Learning basic concepts that lead to a more complex and sophisticated
version of the general concepts entail TPACK: Technological
knowledge, Pedagogical Knowledge, and Content knowledge.
Rediscovering concepts previously presented as students go up in
grade level will be fully supported if all the areas of specialization will
be aided by technologies for teaching and learning. This will further
strengthen retention and will enhance mastery of topics and skills as they
are revisited and consolidated time and again. This also allows learners to
learn topics and skills appropriate to their developmental and cognitive
skills.
Gearing Up for the Future
The K to 12 Curriculum ensures college readiness by aligning
the core and applied courses to the College Readiness Standards
(CRS) and the new General Education (GE) Curriculum. Hence,
the K to 12 Curriculum focused on developing appropriate
Specialization Subjects for the Academic, Sports, Arts and
Design, and Technical Vocational Livelihood Tracks. All of these
specialization subjects have to be supported by educational
technology for better learning.
Nurturing the Holistically Developed
Filipino (College and Livelihood
Readiness, 21st Century Skills)
To nurture holistically developed Filipino, every K to 12
graduate is expected to be ready to go into different paths –
higher education, employment, or entrepreneurship. Every
graduate is expected to be equipped with information,
media and technology skills, learning and innovation skills,
effective communication skills, and life and career skills.
This may happen with the proper implementation of the
curriculum and with the facilitation by excellent teachers.
Teachers make decisions about how they will
implement the curriculum in their specific field of
specialization. They decide on how they must
structure the activities of their lessons and manage
students’ responses and ideas. Teachers’ decisions
have an impact on students’ learning experiences in
class.
The following are points to consider in
identifying and understanding teachers’
roles as curriculum designers:
❑ The most important person in the curriculum
implementation is the teacher. With their knowledge,
experiences, and competencies, teachers are central to any
curriculum development effort. Better teachers support better
learning because they are most knowledgeable about the
practice of teaching and are responsible for introducing the
curriculum in the classroom (Alsubaie, 2016).
❑Curriculum is the planned interaction of
pupils with instructional content, materials,
resources, and processes for evaluating the
attainment of educational objectives-Jadhav
and Patankar (2013).
❑Curriculum is content, but when contextualized, it comes alive
for students. The role of teachers in the curriculum process is
to help students develop an engaged relationship with the
content. Active learning increases the focus and retention of the
curriculum, resulting in an exciting learning environment.
Teachers build lessons that include simulations, experiments,
case studies and activities to deliver a curriculum. This
interactive approach intertwines curriculum and practical
experiences that immerse students in learning.
❑Teachers, on their part, have practical
knowledge based on their daily work with
students. This knowledge is useful to
curriculum committees because teachers can
assess whether the ideas being developed will
work in the classroom (Young, 1988).
2. ICT Pedagogy Integration in
Social Studies
Teaching has always been a challenging profession since
knowledge has been expanding and essential skills have been
increasing and changing. With these challenges, teachers need
to engage educational technologies to assist them in the
teaching-learning process. Engaging educational technologies
in teaching are founded on principles and philosophies.
Understanding these will help you successfully integrate
technologies to allow your students to demonstrate the intended
learning outcomes of your field of specialization.
Integrating Technology
in Instruction
1. John Pisapia (1994)
Integrating technology with teaching means the use of
learning technologies to introduce, reinforce, supplement and
extend skills.
For example, if a teacher merely tells a student to read a book
without any preparation for follow up activities that put the book
in a pedagogical content, the book is not integrated. In the same
way, if the teacher uses the computer to reward children by
allowing them to play a game, the computer is not integrated.
2. International Society for Technology in
Education (ISTE)

Effective integration of technology is achieved when

students are able to select technology tools to help
them obtain information in a timely manner, analyze
and synthesize the information, and present it
professionally. The technology should become an integral
part of how the classroom functions – as accessible as all
other classroom tools.
3. Margaret Lloyd (2005)

ICT integration encompasses an integral part

of broader curriculum reforms which include
both infra-structural as well as pedagogical
considerations that are changing not only how
learning occurs but what is learned.
4. Qiyun Wang and Huay Lit Woo (2007)

Integrating Information and Communication

Technology into teaching and learning is a growing
area that has attracted many educators’ efforts in
recent years. Based on the scope of content covered,
ICT integration can happen in three different areas:
curriculum, topic, and lesson.
5. Bernard Bahati (2010)

The process of integrating ICT in teaching

and learning has to be done at both
pedagogical levels with much emphasis put on
pedagogy. ICT integration into teaching and
learning has to be underpinned by sound
pedagogical principles.
6. UNESCO (2005)
ICT integration is not only mastering the hardware
and software skills. Teachers need to realize how to
organize the classroom to structure the learning tasks
so that ICT resources become automatic and natural
response to the requirements for learning
environments in the same way as teachers use
markers and whiteboards in the classroom.
 Information and
Communication
Technology (ICT)
1. Moursund (2005)
ICT includes all the full range of computer hardware, computer
software, and telecommunication facilities. Thus, it includes
computer devices ranging from handheld calculators to multimillion
worth supercomputers. It includes the full range of display and projections
devices used to view computer output. It includes local area networks and
wide area network that will allow computer systems in people to
communicate with each other. It includes digital cameras, computer
games, CDs, DVDs, cell telephones, telecommunication satellites, and
fiber optics. It includes computerized machinery and computerized robots.
2. Tinio (2009)
ICT is a diverse set of technological tools and
resources used to communicate, create,
disseminate, store, and manage information.
These technologies include hardware devices,
software applications, internet connectivity,
broadcasting technologies, and telephony.
3. UNESCO (2020)

It is a diverse set of technological tools and resources used to

transmit, store, create, share or exchange information.
These technological tools and resources include computers, the
internet (website, blogs and emails), live broadcasting
technologies (radio, television and webcasting), recorded
broadcasting technologies (podcasting, audio and video players
and storage devices) and telephony (fixed or mobile, satellite,
visio/video-conferencing, etc.).
4. Ratheeswari (2018)
ICT influence every aspect of human life. They play
salient roles in workplaces, in business, education, and
entertainment. Moreover, many people recognize ICTs as
catalysts for change that include change in working
conditions, handling and exchanging information, teaching
methods, learning approaches, scientific research and in
accessing information communication technologies.
 Using ICT Integration
Frameworks in Social Studies
Education Learning Plans
A. Conversational Framework of
Laurillard (2002)
The teaching-learning process poses very complex tasks to
allow learners to understand their lessons and master the
skills they are expected to demonstrate. Thus, it will be
reassuring if teachers will explore on engaging various
media to support various learning activities in classrooms.
This is how the Conversational Framework (Laurillard,
2002) may support. The framework postulates a way of
presenting teaching and learning in terms of events.
These are five (5) key teaching and learning
events in the framework which are identified
as:
a. acquisition;
b. discovery;
c. dialogue
d. practice; and,
e. creation
B. Three Fundamental Elements of
ICT Integration by Wang (2008)
Wang in 2008 posited the integration of ICT
consists of three fundamental elements. These
are pedagogy, social interaction, and
technology. These elements are
diagrammatically represented by Wang in the
following figure.
The ICT Integration Framework of Wang can be fully
maximized in developing learning plans. In learning,
pedagogy often refers to the teaching strategies or
techniques that teachers use to deliver their lessons and to
allow their learners to demonstrate the curricular
competencies. The pedagogical element in learning is very
important as it primarily reflects the art of teaching a teacher
will employ in the learning process.
The pedagogical design a teacher will use needs to
include proper selection of appropriate content
and learning activities. In the design, the teacher
needs to look into how the available technological
resources will help provide scaffolds that will assist
learners during the learning processes.
C. Categories for Information
Communication Technology in Teacher
Training
For a successful ICT-pedagogy integration training
to take place, it will help if a training framework
will be used as a guide. Jung (2005) was able to
organize various ICT teacher training efforts into
four categories. This is presented in this framework.
D. UNESCO ICT Competency Framework
for Teachers
Having a society that is increasingly based on
information and knowledge and with the
ubiquity of Information and Communication
Technology (ICT) for instruction, UNESCO was
able to develop ICT Competence Framework for
Teachers (UNESCO, 2018).
LEARNING ACTIVITIES
1. Using the guide questions below,
evaluate learning plans in various subjects
(English, Physical Education, Social
Studies, Science, Mathematics) within the
context of the 21st century classroom.
 Your output will be graded based on the following
criteria:
▪ Depth of evaluation of the learning plan(40%)
▪ Range of understanding of technological,
pedagocical and content knowledge(40%)
▪ Originality ( 20%)
As a future Social Studies teacher, it is your responsibility
to train yourself to be competent first and foremost in
writing a learning plan because it determines the kind of
learning experience your students will receive later on.
Thus, in this activity, you are tasked with writing an
excellent one-week learning plan in Social Studies.
Choose only one unit lesson at any secondary grade
level.
Your learning plan will be graded based on the following criteria:
❑ Alignment of learning outcomes to content, materials and
procedures, and assessment(25%)
❑ Excellent integration of ICT(25%)
❑ Appropriateness and creativity of learning activities(25%)
❑ Promotes higher order thinking skills(HOTS) and student-
centered learning(25%)
Thank you!