DepEd’s Explore, Firm Up, Deepen, Transfer

 Posted by Erlina Ronda Curriculum Reform When we were just being trained to be teachers of mathematics it was emphasized to us that in planning our lesson we should think of manipulative activities whose results will eventually lead to the concepts to be learned. The teacher will make use of the students results to introduce the new concept through another whole class activity to tie together the results or through question and answer discussion. This leads to the definition of the concept by the teacher or to a certain procedure or calculation with the help of the students, depending on the topic. The teacher then gives exercises so students can hone their skill or deepen their understanding of the concept. A homework, usually a more difficult version of the one just done in the class, is given at the end of the lesson. I don’t remember my supervising teacher requiring me to always give a test at the end of my lesson. I think I was on my third year of teaching in public schoolwhen this ‘bright idea’ of giving a test at the end every lesson was imposed. Failure to do so means you did not have a good lesson because you do not have an evaluation part! Anyway, let me stop here as this is not what I want to talk about in this post. I want to talk about the latest ruling about “Ubidized lesson pans”.When I first heard about the DepEd’s “Explore-FirmUp-Deepen-Transfer” version of UbD  I remember the framework I followed when I was doing practice teaching at Bicol University Laboratory High School. The lesson starts with activities, process results of activities to give birth to the new concept, firm-up and deepen the learning with additional exercise and activities and then use the homework to assess if students can transfer their learning to a little bit more complex situation. So I thought EFDT must not be a bad idea. I have observed as a teacher-trainer that over the years teachers have succumbed to the temptation of talk-and-talk method of teaching. Reason: there are too many students, activities are impossible; too many classes to handle, too many topics to cover. With this scenario I thought EFDT may turn out to be a much better guide in planning the lesson that the one currently being used: “Motivation-LessonProper-Practice-Evaluation” because EFDT actually describes what the teachers need to do at each part of the lesson. But it turned out that EFDT was very different what I think it is and is being implemented per chapter and not per topic or lesson in the chapter!I don’t know if the teachers simply misinterpreted it or this is really how the DepEd wants it implemented. If this is how UbD is being done in the entire archipelago then we have a BIG problem. The chapter is divided into four parts: First part- Explore; Second part- Firm Up; Third Part – Deepen; Fourth Part –

Transfer. There are many unit topics in a chapter so it means for example that what is being ‘deepened’ is a different topic to what has been ‘firmed-up” or “explored’! I think this is a mortal sin in teaching.

EFDT is used in all subject areas.  The nature of each subject, each discipline, is different. I don’t know why some people think they can be taught in the same way or to even think that within a discipline, its topics can be taught in the same way. Or that the same style of teaching is applicable to all year levels in all kinds of ability. UbD, the real one, not our version, does not even promote a particular way of teaching but a particular way of planning. Stges 1 and 2 dictates the teaching that you needed to do.

Activities for Explore part always have to be done in groups and with some physical movement. A math teacher was complaining to me that her students no longer have the energy for their mathematics class especially during the “explore’ part because all subject areas have activities and group work so by the time it’s math period which happens to be the fourth in the morning, students no longer want to move. The explore part alone can run for several days. All the while I thought the “explore part” of EFDT can be done with a mathematical investigation or an open-ended problem.

The prepared lesson plans given during the training consists of activities from explore part to transfer part and teachers implement them one after another without much processing and connection. Most activities aren’t connected anyway.

The teachers can modify the activity but they said they don’t have resources where to get activities. The teachers cannot modify the first two parts of the UbD plan. The teachers said they were told not to modify them. I

asked “how does it help you in the implementation of the lesson?” They said “we just read the third part, where the lessons are. We don’t really understand this UbD. Our trainers cannot explain it to us. They said it was not also explained well during the training.

The teacher have this cute little notebook which contains their lesson. So I asked “so what is your lesson at this time?” She said it’s 3.5. Indeed that’s the little number listed there. So what’s it about. I think we are now on Firm-up. I have to check the xerox copy of the lesson plan distributed to us. Well, I thought UbD is a framework for designing the lesson. It was proposed by its author with the assumption that if teachers will design their lesson that way, then perhaps they can facilitate their lesson well. How come that teachers are not encourage to design their own lesson? How come we give them prepared lesson plans which have not even been tried out?

Here’s my wish Explore, Firm-up, Deepen, and Transfer be interpreted in mathematicsteaching.Explore – students are given an open-ended problem solving task or short mathematical investigation and they are given opportunity to show different ways of solving it.Firm-up – the teacher helps the students make connections by asking them to explain their solutions and reasoning, comment on other’s solutions, identify those solutions that uses the same concepts, same reasoning, same representation, etc.

Deepen – the teacher consolidates ideas and facilitates students construction of new concept or meaning, linking it to previously learned concepts; helps students to find new representations of ideas, etc.Transfer – teacher challenges students to extend the problem given by changing aspects of the original problem or, construct similar problems and then begin to explore again.The above descriptions corresponds to a way of teaching called teaching mathematics via problem solving which this blog promotes.

Instructional Design of the 2010 Curriculum for Basic Education (Part One)

Following its mandate to improve the country's curriculum for Basic Education in order to equip the youth with the skills and knowledge needed in this Information Age, the Department of Education (DepEd) deemed it wise to utilize the teaching-learning paradigm proposed by Grant Wiggins and Jay Mctighe (2002).

The authors call it "Understanding by Design,” now popularly called UbD.

1. UNDERSTANDING by DESIGN (UbD)

Q1: In essence, what is UbD?

It is a proposed design for a curriculum framework, a course program, a unit plan, a learning system and the like. It can simply be described as an instructional design.

Q2: What are the major components of all instructional designs?

All instructional designs, including UbD, have: (a) educational goals/objec-tives and content, (b) teaching-learning strategies, and (c) assessment.

1.1 Goals/Objectives and Content

Educational psychologists group the general goals of education into three:

a. Knowledge (cognitive goal)

b. Skills, both cognitive and manipulative (behavioral goal)

c. Attitudes (affective goal)

Some educators express objectives as learning competencies. For lesson plans, some educators recommend that these be stated as behavioral objectives, since behavior is easiest to detect if the objectives have been attained.

Content includes the main topics and major ideas per chapter.

1.2 Teaching Strategies and Techniques

All instructional designs encourage teachers to use varied instructional activities that are relevant to the students' daily life and cater to their learning styles and multiple intelligences.

The strategies and techniques that teachers use vary depending on various factors-LEARNER factors (their characteristics, SES, readiness, etc.); LEARNING ENVIRONMENT factors (school facilities and equipment, books and other learning resources, etc.); and TEACHER factors (their academic background, trainings attended, teaching experience, etc.).

The teaching strategies also vary among the various academic disciplines. In science, for instance, found to be most effective are: (a) the inquiry approach and (b) hands-on learning or learning by doing, where the learner employs as many senses as possible in the learning process-touch, sight, hearing, smell. On the other hand, very effective in a skill subject are: (a) learning by doing and (b) drill/repetition.

1.3 Assessment

Assessment is used to monitor learning, to find out if the students are achieving the objectives. It tells the teacher if the students understood what he/she taught them.

Very helpful to instruction is formative evaluation. The results of formative evaluation are the teacher's guide in identifying the topics and skills where the students did not have meaningful learning and, therefore, need to be reinforced. Formative evaluation is usually short and addresses specific topics/concepts and skills.

Summative evaluation is less useful to instruction since it is given at the end of the quarter/unit and very little remedial work can be done, if ever.

Then there is the issue of traditional versus alternative tests. Traditional tests (e.g., multiple choice, matching, filling the blanks, etc.) are characterized by the fact that the answers to the questions are already found in the test, and the students simply choose or predict them. These tests are easy to check, but the thinking skills they involve are generally lower than those of alternative tests.

Alternative tests, also called performance-based assessment or performance tasks, are characterized by the fact that the outputs or the answers to certain questions in the task are "constructed" by the students, borrowing the term from constructivism.

The outputs of performance tasks are not graded the same way as the results of traditional tests. They are graded based on a set of criteria that is unique to each output. Thus, performance tasks are accompanied by rubrics.

Q3: In simple terms, what do these basic components of an instructional design mean to the classroom teacher?

When a teacher is given a course assignment at the beginning of the school year, he/she has three questions in mind. These are:

a. What will my students learn from the course?......................................................I. CONTENT

b. How will I teach it so that it will be understood by the students?........................II. STRATEGIES

c. How will I know if indeed the students understood it?.........................................III. ASSESSMENT

2. Implementation Strategies of the Proposed Design

Q4: In terms of the basic components of an instructional design, what are the contributions of UbD?

The major contributions of UbD are in the areas of content and assessment.

2.1 Content

Content is the structural base of the knowledge goal of education in school.

a. UbD recommends that, from the start, the teacher should identify the main idea, or what UbD calls 'big idea' or 'enduring understanding' and what DepEd calls 'essential understanding' (EU). The idea is that, as far as content is concerned, the EU should serve as the focus of all the instructional activities in each chapter or unit or quarter.

b. UbD also recommends that, to arrive at the EU, the teacher should initiate the discussion by means of a question, what UbD and DepEd call 'essential questions' (EQ). The answer to the EQ is the EU. Sometimes, several EQ are answered by one EU. And sometimes, one EQ is answered by several EU.

2.2 Assessment

a. UbD recommends that, right after the identification of the EU, the teacher should think of the appropriate performance task that will depict students understanding of the EU and supporting concept(s) and, at the same time, promote lifelong learning.

The reason is that, since the teacher has a goal, he/she must have the appropriate tool, or instrument, to determine attainment of said goal.

b. Once the students' performance task has been identified, the teacher may now choose instructional activities that will help the students understand the EU and EQ and, at the same time, give them the knowledge and skills that will enable them to successfully accomplish the identified performance assessment.

3. Classroom Instruction

Q5: What does UbD say about the importance of teaching strategies and learning activities in the classroom?

Q6: Is there a place for lesson plans in UbD?

The following text answers both Q5 and Q6.

a. UbD recognizes the importance of having a vast repertoire of strategies and activities to attain the educational goals.

The choice of learning activities should, of course, take into consideration the various factors cited in section 1.2, aside from the special curricular features that DepEd requires such as integration of values and environmental education.

b. It goes without saying that management of instructional activities is achieved through a lesson plan. However, with UbD, the lesson plan may cover an entire quarter or unit or chapter. But if the classroom teacher feels more comfortable if he/she also has a daily lesson plan, so be it.

c. In this regard, all that UbD reminds the teacher of is this: before designing the lesson plan, go back to the CONTENT and the ASSESSMENT pre-viously identified.

4. Back to the Overall Design

Q7: How may this sequence of the components of an instructional design proposed by UbD be visualized?

Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3

CONTENT/OUTCOME/DESIRED RESULT

(EU, EQ)

ASSESSMENT

(performance task)

INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES &

ACTIVITIES

(lesson plan)

a. The diagram above answers Q7. The sequence of the three major components of the design is presented as Stage 1, 2 and 3.

b. The diagram above also answers Q5 and Q6. Yes, there is a place for lesson plans in UbD. There is also a place for various assessment strategies to monitor learning-short quizzes, vocabulary exercises, drills, problem sets, etc. But for overall assessment of learning or understanding the big idea or EU, UbD recommends a performance task, which is an alternative assess-ment or what DepEd refers to as authentic assessment.

c. In constructing the students' performance task in Stage 2, UbD recom-mends that the teacher makes the students do one or more of the following, which reflect(s) six levels of understanding: explain, interpret, apply, deve-lop perspective, show empathy and manifest self-knowledge.

It might be noted that the first four in the list of 'levels of understanding' or 'facets of learning' overlap with the familiar cognitive skills like analyzing, interpreting, applying, comparing, etc. But the last two differ from the rest in that these two are affective and reflective.

5. Back to the Teaching-Learning Plan

5.1 Alignment of Instructional Activities with Goal (EU) and Assessment

Of primary consideration in making the teaching-learning plan (Stage 3) is that it must be aligned with the content (Stage 1) and assessment (Stage 2) components of the plan. This means that the plan should have appropriate ac-tivities and learning resources that would ensure understanding of the EU.

5.2 Thoughts from Constructivism

Basically, constructivism is a theory on how a person learns. The following ideas from this theory are very helpful to the classroom teacher:

a. A learner constructs his own understanding and knowledge of his surroundings.

b. He/She does this through two means: (1) by experiencing things and (2) by reflecting on said experiences.

c. When the learner meets a new information or idea from a learning activity, he examines his prior knowledge and tries to reconcile the new with the previous ideas and experiences. He asks questions, tries to answer the questions, explores implications, and assesses both his prior knowledge and the new idea. If he cannot reconcile them, two things may happen: (1) If the prior knowledge leaves many unanswered questions (meaning, it is indefensible), he may accept the new idea and even change (or give up) his previous belief. (2) On the other hand, if he finds the new idea indefensible, he may judge it as irrelevant and, thus, reject it.

Q8: What is the teacher's role in the classroom described in item c above?

d. The teacher's role is (1) to provide learning activities/experiences aligned with the big idea he is teaching; (2) to discover the student's prior knowledge; and (3) to guide the student through the learning and reflection process. When the student succeeds in this learning experience, up to the point of changing his earlier belief in favor of the new idea, that student is said to have had a 'meaningful learning'; he has 'constructed his own understanding and knowledge'.

5.3 Teaching Guide for Stage 3

DepEd recommends four steps for developing a lesson parallel to the learning process discussed in section 5.2. These are: (a) EXPLORE, (b) FIRM UP, (c) DEEPEN and (d) TRANSFER/APPLY the learning. These are illustrated by the lesson exemplars in Part Two of this publication.

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