Physical Science: Direction toward Enhanced Thinking Skills of Grade 12 Senior High School Students

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Students are expected to become lifelong learners as envisioned by the Department of Education. To be actively involved, students must engross in such higher-order thinking tasks. Within this context, it is proposed that approaches promoting active learning be definite as instructional undertakings concerning students in doing things and thinking about what they are doing. The research study projected the implementation of different approaches of delivery supports students' prerequisites in the course in real classroom scenario thus it will offer to learn processes that will facilitate student engagement, enhance the relevance and improve enthusiasm by actively involving students within their classroom in a realistic learning environment.

METHODS

The focus of the study was to know the difference in the performance among the three groups of grade 12 senior high school students as exposed todifferent active learning approaches. The study utilized the experimental design. Inventory of active learning approaches from the 2C-2I-1R Pedagogical Approaches is done through a survey. Three approaches were identified as preferred by the learners namely-Collaborative, Inquiry-Based and Reflective. These three approaches were then applied to the three groups of Grade 12 students (92 students) using learning instruments containing varied activities that exemplify the process of collaborative, inquiry-based and reflective approaches.

RESULTS

The preferred active learning approaches by the students as identified in the study are the Collaborative, Inquiry-Based and Reflective Approaches. From the results of the post-test done, the low order thinking skills of the group exposed to the collaborative approach is better than the groups exposed to inquiry-based and reflective approach. However, in high order thinking skills, it is the group exposed to a reflective approach that outnumbered the performance among groups exposed to the inquiry-based and collaborative approaches.

DISCUSSIONS

Senior high school teachers are encouraged to embrace the 2C-2I-1R pedagogical approaches of teaching as mandated by the educational sector in order to actively engage the learners in the teaching-learning process. These approaches enrich the thinking skills (LOTS and HOTS) of the learners as reflected in the study.