Practical Life Skill Project-based Learning Plan

Abstract

Education, as defined by John Dewey, is life, emphasizes the practical applications of conceptual learning in the school community. Maria Montessori advanced this principle with her learning by doing, an educational approach where learners are introduced to the daily affairs of life to develop their practical problem-solving skills. UNICEF (2012) opined that life skills education is an important vehicle to equip young people to negotiate and mediate challenges and risks in their lives and enable productive participation in society; hence the conduct of this study to assess the practical life skills of Grade 4 pupils. It utilized a descriptive-correlational research design, which was participated by pupils, parents, and teachers in Bagulin District, La Union. The validated and pilot tested researcher-made questionnaire was utilized as the main data gathering tool. Permission from the La Union Schools Division Office to administer the questionnaire was sought before the data collection commenced. Frequency count, weighted mean, and Pearson Product Moment of Correlation and t-test were used to manage the data. The findings revealed that most of the respondents are male, whose hobbies are watching movies and playing cellphone games, and the means of their family livelihood is farming. They are very highly competent in agricultural skills and highly competent in home economics, industrial and ICT skills. Respondents vary in their perceptions of the pupils' competencies in information and communication technology (ICT) while their profile does not affect their level of competencies along with ICT, agriculture, home economics, and industrial arts. These findings provided input to educators in the remote places of the country in understanding the shifting learners' interest even in the outskirts of the metropolis, i.e. the attractiveness of ICT. Moreover, an innovation in the EPP instructional strategies needs attention to address the changing milieu of learners. Finally, the practical skills project-based learning plan is recommended for adoption and guide to teachers in EPP.