A seminar-workshop for Mathematics teachers of the Philippine Military Academy was conducted on March 6-8, 2012. Held at PMA, Fort del Pilar, Bagiuo City, this was attended by 23 participants of whom 15 are teaching mathematics. On the first day of the seminar-workshop, the participants did an activity that made them reflect on their own teaching practices. Then they were led to identify the goals and how mathematics should be taught in order to achieve these goals. Aside from their goal of making mathematics interesting, they identified the need to develop higher order thinking skills (HOTS) among their cadets. To guide the participants in achieving these goals, they were given activities that familiarized them about developing and assessing higher order thinking skills (HOTS) and about teaching mathematics through problem solving.
One of the highlights of the said event was a workshop in which participants were assigned to one of 3 different groups. Based on their goal, the group collaboratively designed and developed a lesson on the topic of their choice. Then on the following day, each group chose one participant to implement the lesson while the other members observed. After the implementation, a post-lesson discussion was conducted where the participants critiqued the lesson and agreed on some points to improve it. This has introduced the participants the process of doing lesson study where they collaboratively developed, implemented, critiqued, and improved the lesson. Through this process they learned to assess their own practice, learned to appreciate and welcome new ideas. For them the process was too personal - started with their own experiences where they were able to apply to practice- resulting in some insights on how to improve their way of teaching and change in their perspective of a situation.
By Allan M. Canonigo
By Allan M. Canonigo
