RCTQ, NEAP collaborate on HOTS items expert validation
Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) items/activities developed by the three DepEd technical working groups (TWGs) for the Professional Learning Packages (PLPs) for Mathematics, Science and English/Reading underwent expert validation on 21 September 2021. The items being validated are for use by teachers in the three subject areas in Grades 7 and 8, and Grades 9 and 10.
Facilitated by the Program Delivery and Implementation (PDI) unit of the National Educators Academy of the Philippines in cooperation with RCTQ, the virtual activity validated and enhanced the draft items based on the K to 12 curriculum and the competencies articulated in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).
The validation was attended by 30 validators including specialists from the Bureau of Curriculum Development (BCD), Bureau of Learning Delivery (BLD) and selected Education Program Supervisors (EPS) and master teachers from various regions.
Ms. Ana Sol Reyes, NEAP Program Delivery and Implementation (PDI) Unit Lead, welcomed the participants and thanked the RCTQ “for all its efforts on education and for continuously supporting NEAP.”
In her opening message, RCTQ Deputy Director Ms. Maria Lourdes Pantoja—who was Director of the DepEd Bureau of Human Resource and Organizational Development (BHROD) before joining RCTQ—said that as the PISA assesses higher order thinking skills including the student’s ability to transfer and apply learning in the three subject areas as tested in new situations and unfamiliar questions, “RCTQ supports DepEd as it strengthens its resolve to initiate reforms directed at the improvement of subject content knowledge, for both teachers and students across the Philippines.” This project, she said, forms the Department of Education’s and RCTQ’s responses to the findings of the PISA conducted in 2018 for Filipino learners.
The development and validation of the PLPs is a partnership between NEAP and RCTQ that aims to raise the learner skills using the Structure of the Observed Learning Outcome (SOLO) framework. As part of the project, support materials are being developed for teachers on pedagogy and assessment practices that promote HOTS, and for master teachers, school heads, and supervisors to support them in their mentoring roles in schools with a focus on helping beginning teachers.
At the conclusion of the validation workshop, RCTQ Director Dr. Gina Gonong acknowledged the work of TWG members who she said, like the validators, were also experts in their respective subject areas. TWG members, she said, underwent capacity building workshops and a rigorous process of review and revisions of the items they developed.
“The challenge of preparing items or activities that stimulate Higher Order Thinking Skills is a huge task,” Dr. Gonong said. “But we are all here because we agree that to help our learners, we need to help our teachers. And to help our teachers, we need to help people that are expected to help teachers like supervisors, master teachers, principals.”
The PLPs are expected to be rolled out nationwide for use by teachers and school leaders.
RCTQ’s research and technical assistance to NEAP is indicated in DepEd Order No. 11, series of 2019 or the Implementation of the NEAP Transformation. The development of PLPs is supported by the Australian government through its Philippines COVID-19 Development Response Plan.
https://www.ritq.ph/?p=3203NewsHOTS,SOLO
