Republic of the PhilippinesMINDANAO STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF EDUCATIONFatima, General Santos City

SELECTION AND ORGANIZATION OF

CONTENTPresented by: Do-ong, Eunice P.

Presented to: Prof. Salome France- Sestina

ED 107 (MTH 10:30-12:00)

Learning Objectives: Upon the successful completion of this lesson, students will be able to:

Enumerate and explain the guiding principles in the selection and organization of content.

Explain the qualities in the selection and organization of content.

Enumerate and explain the content of cognitive, skill and affective elements.

Guiding Principles in the Selection and Organization of Content

1. Observe the following qualities in the selection and organization of content:

Validity- Teaching the content that we ought to teach according to national standards explicit in the Basic Education Curriculum; to realize the goals and objectives of the course as laid down in BEC.

Significance- What we teach should respond to the needs and interests of the learners.

Balance- Content includes not only facts but also concepts and values.

Self-sufficiency- Content fully covers the essentials. Learning content is not “mile-wide-and-inch-deep”.

Interest- Teacher considers the interest of the learners, their developmental stages and cultural and ethnic background.

Utility- Answers the question, “Will this content is of the use to the learners?

Feasibility- The content is feasible in the sense that essential content can be covered in the amount of time available for instruction.

 2. At the base of the structure of cognitive subject matter content are facts. We can’t do away with facts but be sure to go beyond facts by constructing an increasingly richer and more sophisticated knowledge base and by working out a process of conceptual understanding. 

Few ways by which we can help our students (Ormrod, 2000):

Providing opportunities for experimentation- Encourages the students to come up with their own procedure and end up discovering something new.

Presenting the ideas of others- Present ideas of others who worked hard over the years to explain phenomena.

Emphasizing conceptual understanding- The emphasis goes beyond facts. We integrate and correlate facts, concepts, and values in a meaningful manner. 

Specific strategies that can help teachers to develop conceptual understanding in their students (Ormrod,

2000): 

1. Organize units around a few core ideas and themes2. Explore each topic in depth3. Explain how new ideas relate to students’ own experiences and to things they have previously learned. 4. Show students- through the things we say, give or use- that conceptual understanding of subject matter is far more important than knowledge of isolated facts5. Ask students to teach to others what they have learned

6. Promote dialogue by encouraging our students to talk about what they learn

7. Using authentic activities by incorporating lessons into “real world” activities. 

3. Subject matter is an integration of cognitive, skill, and affective elements. 

The Structure of Subject Matter ContentCOGNITIVE (Ormrod, 2000)

 Fact- an idea or action that can be verified (e.g., names and dates of important activities, population of the Philippines).

Concept- a categorization of events, places etc. (e.g., the concept furniture includes objects like tables, chairs, beds, desks and etc.)

Principle- relationship(s) between among facts and concepts (e.g., The number of children in the family is related to the average scores on nationally standardized achievement tests for those children.)

Hypotheses- educated guesses about relationships (principles)

Theories- set of facts, concepts and principles that regulate human underlying unobservable mechanisms that regulate human learning, development and behavior. They explain why principles are true. (e.g., Piaget’s theory on cognitive development)

Laws- firmly established, thoroughly tested principle or theory (e.g., Thorndike’s law of conservation and energy) 

SKILLS  Thinking Skills- refer to the skills beyond recall and comprehension. They are the application of what was learned, synthesis, evaluation and critical and creative thinking. 

Divergent thinking- enables you to generate a diverse assortment of possible solutions to a problem. From the diverse possible solutions, you arrive at the best possible answer. It includes:

Fluent thinking- Generation of ideas, thought flow is rapid

Flexible thinking- Variety of thoughts in the kinds of ideas generated

Original thinking- Differs from what’s gone before

Elaborative thinking- Embellishes on previous ideas or plans. It uses prior knowledge to expand and add upon things and ideas (Torres, 1994).

Convergent thinking- Narrowing down from many possible thoughts to end up on a single test thought or an answer to problem Problem Solving- Problem solving is made easier when the problem is well-defined. 

Techniques to better define the problem (Ormrod, 2000):

Break large problems into well- defined Distinguish information needed Identify techniques to find needed information

We can also solve the problem by the use of an algorithm (means following specific, step-by-step instructions) and heuristics (a general problem-solving strategy for a solution that sometimes leads to an effective solution and sometimes does not). Metaphoric thinking- Uses analogical thinking, a figure of speech where a word is used in manner different from its ordinary designation to suggest or imply parallelism or similarity.

Critical thinking- It involves evaluating information or arguments in terms of their accuracy and worth (Beyer, 1985). It takes a variety of forms:

Verbal reasoning- Evaluating the persuasive techniques found in oral and written language.

Argument analysis- Discriminate reasons that do and do not support particular conclusions

Hypothesis testing- Evaluating the value and data and research results in terms of the methods used to obtain them. Decision making- Weighing the pros and cons of each proposed alternative approach. 

Creative thinking- “producing something that is both original and worthwhile (Stenberg, 2003). For this thinking,

we must develop: 

Awareness- The ability to notice the attributes of things in the environment so as to build a knowledge base that is the beginning of all other forms of creative thinking.

Curiosity- The ability and inclination to wonder about things and mentally explore the new, novel, unique ideas

Imagination- The ability to speculate about things that are not necessarily based on reality

Fluency- The ability to produce a large quantity of ideas

Flexibility- The ability to look at things from several different perspectives or view points

Originality- the ability to produce new, novel, unique ideas

Elaboration- the ability to add on to an idea; to give details; build groups of related ideas or expand on ideas

Perseverance- The ability to keep trying to find an answer; to see a task through completion

Manipulative Skills- The learning of these manipulative skills begin with naïve manipulation and ends up in expert and precise manipulation. 

   

(AFFECTIVE) Interactive attitudes and values The cognitive dimension—when we teach the value of honesty we ask the ff. questions: what is meant by honesty? Why do I have to be honest? The affective dimension—you have to feel something towards honesty. You have to be moved towards honesty as preferable to dishonesty. The behavioral dimension—you lead an honest life.

 

How can we teach values?

By deutero-learning. Your students learn by being exposed to the situation, by acquainting himself with a setting, by following models, pursuing inspiration and copying behavior. YOUR CRITICAL ROLE AS MODELS IN AND OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM CANNOT BE OVER-EMPHASIZED.

By positively reinforcing good behavior.

By teaching the cognitive component of values in the classroom.

SOURCE: Corpuz R., Salandanan G., Principles of Teaching 1, Lorimar Publishing, Inc., 2008

 

THANK YOUand

GOD BLESS!!!