Science-related subjects in the education curriculum play a vital role, it is one of the most important disciplines because it is relevant to students’ lives. It develops a student’s critical thinking skills and problem-solving. These skills are lifelong skills that make students create ideas, evaluate decisions logically and even recognize evidence behind public –policymaking. Teaching students about technological literacy through science education leads the students to success and beyond.
In today’s generation, it is obvious that learning in Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Earth Science as a discipline, generates a negative response to most students at the secondary level. A lot of studies show the low interest of students in science. Based on research conducted by Lee and Brophy (1996) in analyzing students’ motivation patterns in learning science showed that only three students out of 12 case students had an interest in science, the remaining nine students may study science for extrinsic motivation and escaped in learning science. Also, more or fewer education students avoid science, especially Chemistry and Physics (Palmer, 2004)
Moreover, weaknesses in the said discipline may be evident in the performance of students from science high school in the country’s standardized tests, including the national achievement test (NAT). The DepEd reported that the NAT mean percentage score (MPS) for high school in the school year 2012-2013 was 51.41 percent, 23.59 percent far from the target percentage points. The MPS in science shows 41.35 percent (Dela Cruz, 2017).
Students in the Philippines gained recognition in Robotics Competition, Fair in International Science and Engineering, and as well as in different Science and Physics Olympiads. It is also reported that students’ scores in the Third/trends International Mathematics Science Study (TIMMS) were higher than the international mean. Also, in the case of performance in National Achievement (NAT) is 75% mastery level.
As the Educational System in the Philippines experiences lack of facilities and limited resources to provide the needs of every science classroom. It is the teacher’s responsibility to provide appropriate and effective teaching to the students. Thus, a science teacher is responsible for devising instructional material and strategies to sustain the needs of the students in learning science. Developing an instructional strategy is a vital part of learning, it has a strong relationship with the student’s academic performance (Dahar, 2011). The importance of developing intervention materials in the learning process must be taken into consideration. It plays an integral role in the teaching-learning process. It must be appropriately and well prepared to make the teaching process active, and effective (Dacumos, 2016).
Nowadays, educators are challenged to devise and think of appropriate learning models that will involve students in learning process and be responsible for their achievements through technology. However, educators disregard the importance of scientific, creative, and research thinking skills in delivering knowledge Papathanasiou et al. (2014).
Since in today’s generation, students are in the digital era where information and technology improve rapidly. This will serve as an avenue for classroom instruction intervention, and one of these is the latest trend in education which is flipped classroom or inverted classroom learning model. In the field of information and communication technology (ICT), flipped classroom is considered as a new concept that entices researchers to study and to evaluates its application to various educational traits (Koehler, Mishra & Cain, 2013).
In a flipped classroom, the lesson is initially given and introduced before the discussion and then students will apply the learning in the classroom. This method provides pre-recorded videos to students at home and tasks them to attend the class armed with knowledge and some questions for clarification. This approach requires teachers’ interaction with students’ independent skills in studying with technology Jensen et al. (2015).
The idea behind this method is to rethink when the learner’s resources are accessible. This couple’s student’s contact with teachers-once with the videos at home gives them the chance to more independent learning with the guidance of the teachers while having the content on their own. This method may have different variations where students are tasked to make assignments, and projects based on the watched video lectures. Teachers from other countries use flipped classrooms in teaching but here in the Philippines, the Department of Education provides a learning structure in teaching which is the traditional method where teachers start their lesson with motivation and introduction with the topic before proceeding to the proper discussion. Even though there are some studies conducted about the use of this method especially in medical education no meta-analysis has been published that focus on the effect of flipped classroom versus traditional classroom on students’ learning in secondary school especially senior high school in the Philippines.
By: Lyka Bugarin-Dela Rosa | BNHS | Teacher II
