Pedagogical Contents

Teaching Method

It was on our second day on TK Lab when we started observing classes. Upon seating inside the Kinder-2 class, it was a whole new world for me as the classroom setup is different from my country. The teachers used tangible materials which the students can manipulate. I also noticed the materials used in the activities are mostly manipulatives, as what they call it “loose parts”. The teacher told us that in TK Lab, they adopt the Reggio Emilia Approach which is evident in every class we have observed. The classes are all student-centered. The teachers encouraged the students to speak their minds during discussions which is a very ideal method in teaching children. Almost all of the activities are led by the learners’ participation and the teachers only serves as facilitators.

Learning Materials and Innovation

Since TK Lab practiced the Reggio Emilia Approach, the learning materials are usually tangible. One thing I noticed is that the teachers do not rely on technology most of the time. They provide printed pictures, realia, and other materials that the children can feel and touch rather than providing digital examples.

Sources of Learning and Technology

Laptops, slide presentations, and videos are seldomly used inside the classrooms of TK Lab. I only observed one (1) class who uses television to let the students watch videos related to the topic. The classes in TK Lab lean more on the traditional technologies such as whiteboards, printed materials, dioramas, realia, and other creative teacher-made materials which the learners can feel, touch, and manipulate.

The learners also have individual workbooks where the activities are designed for the whole quarter. This workbooks contains not only pen and paper activities but also cutting and pasting, and coloring activities.

Authentic Assessment

Although the student workbooks and notebooks can already be used as assessment, the teachers would always provide students fun and creative activities that they can do at the end of every lesson aside from answering the workbook. Most of the activities use loose parts. During the assessment, the teachers usually prepare three(3) to four(4) activities for the children. One activity is from the workbook and the other three are teacher made. Teacher made activities usually are puzzles, art activities, use of loose parts such as clothes pin, clay, popsicle sticks, seashells, stones, dry leaves, and other manipulatives.

The students are free to choose which activity they will do first. In this way, they do the activities because they are willing to do and not because they are forced to do it. The learners are also being assisted by the teachers.

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