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Understanding by Design, Learning by Design,

and Project-Based Learning can do more good to
Philippine Basic Education
By jfelizardo
Created 03/02/2010 - 02:14

?Knowledge is not information to be delivered at one end, and encoded, memorized, retrieved, and
applied at the other end. Instead, knowledge is experience that is acquired through interaction
with the

world, people and things.?

- Jean Piaget

For many years, the traditional type of information delivery in the Philippines was centered on the teacher,
who spoonfeeds the students which concepts to learn and directs them where to look for additional
information on these concepts. During those years, teachers centered their academic activities on teaching
their students what to learn, where to look, and how to learn.

Much of it has changed nowadays. Access to the Internet is easily available through the proliferation of
Internet-equipped school libraries, home PC Internet subscription, and Internet cafes. Teachers have
discovered that students prefer multimedia-supported lectures and web-based activities. Teaching styles
have blossomed into a mixture of traditional and distance education teaching techniques. Today, learning
focuses on faculty-facilitated and student-centered activities[1]
. The teacher is now merely a facilitator of knowledge and a guide to the students who have the freedom to
explore different avenues of information to supplement their learning.

In a Constructionist Learning Environment [2], students learn by doing and making in a public, guided, and
collaborative process which includes feedback from peers, not just from teachers. The main idea in this
learning environment is to engage the learner in different experiences which makes the learner open to
encouraging his own personal understanding. Papert (1990) asserts that ?only in this way will there be
something rich enough in your mind to be worth talking about. [3]? Let's examine two forms of a
Constructionist Learning Environment:

Learning by Design [4] comes from the constructionist theory which emphasizes the value of
learning through creating, programming, or participating in other forms of designing, to create a rich
context for learning. Learning by Design values both the process of learning and its outcomes or
products. Its essence is in the construction of meaning. Designers (learners) create objects or
 artifacts representing a learning outcome that is meaningful to them.

Problem-based learning [1] is ?a curriculum development and instructional system that

simultaneously develops both problem-solving strategies and disciplinary knowledge bases and
skills by placing students in the active role of problem solvers confronted with an ill- structured
problem that mirrors real-world problems?. Finkle and Torp (1995)

I received reliable information that the DepEd plans to adopt the Understanding by Design [5] (UBD)
curriculum development framework. Covey (1994) best describes this by saying ?To begin with the end in
mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination. It means to know where you're going
so that you better understand where you are now so that the steps you take are always in the right
direction.?

Understanding by Design is centered on three stages:

Identifying desired results (setting attainable goals and objectives in sync with the DepEd and
school's student competencies priorities)
Determining acceptable evidences (that students have attained the desired results)
Planning learning experiences and instruction (identifying misconceptions and misunderstanding
and addressing them at the design stage)

Some DepEd textbook publishers have already been reformatting their textbooks to reflect the UBD format,
so this means DepEd will surely adopt UBD.

Understanding by Design, Learning by Design, and Problem-based Learning have a lot of main similarities.
All of them are grounded on planning goals and objectives, designing and using appropriate learning
strategies, materials, and equipment, and assessing and revising the entire process in order to ensure
learning.

Whatever curriculum development framework the DepEd wishes to implement, however, it must highly
consider the Filipino Learner psyche. We have seen a maximum of ?adoptions? of ?educational
directions? and a minimal of ?adaptations.? After all, the learner is still the center of all learning activities.
The Filipino learner learns differently from a British, American, or Japanese learner.

Take for example the proliferation of Koreans in the Philippines who now employ Filipinos to rewrite
existing English textbooks. The danger here is Filipino textbook re-writers have no idea of how the Korean
student learns. With this neglected factor, how can the rewritten textbook be an effective learning tool for
the Korean?

Before the DepEd tries to ?adopt? new learning methods and standardize it for the country's schools, it
must first ?adapt? these to the Pinoy learner's psyche. Only then could we truly see a significant
transformation of educational competencies of our students.
References:

1 http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Problem-based_learning[1]

2 http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Constructionist[2]

3 http://dougiamas.com/writing/constructivism.html#constructionism[3]

4 http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/index.php?title=Constructionism[6]
%2C_Learning_by_Design% 2C_and_Project_Based_Learning - Constructionism, Learning by Design,
and Project Based Learning

5 http://xnet.rrc.mb.ca/glenh/understanding_by_design.htm[5]

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Source URL: http://e-turo.org/?q=node/855

Links:
[1] http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Problem-based_learning
[2] http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Constructionist
[3] http://dougiamas.com/writing/constructivism.html#constructionism
[4]
http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/index.php?title=Constructionism,_Learning_by_Design,_and_Project_Based_Learning
[5] http://xnet.rrc.mb.ca/glenh/understanding_by_design.htm
[6] http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/index.php?title=Constructionism