The Field Study Program of the Philippine Normal University in SY 2006-2007

Abstract

The school year 2005-2006 saw the first year of the implementation of the revised teacher education curriculum. One of the new features of this revised curriculum is the field study program with courses closely tied up with the professional education courses. This field study program aims "to provide students with practical learning experiences in which they can observe, verify, reflect on, and experience the different components of the teaching-learning process in actual school settings" (Commission on Higher Education, 2004). All Teacher Education Institutions (TEIs) have been guided by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) memorandum no. 30. Under this program, as stipulated in the implementing guidelines, the teacher education students are required to take six field study courses aligned with some professional education courses, which they have to take before their student teaching or practicum. Moreover, each of the six field study courses is given one (1) unit credit apart from the six-unit practicum course.

The field study program of the revised teacher education curriculum started in school year 2006-2007, the second year of the implementation of the revised curriculum. In implementing the program, the Philippine Normal University (PNU), being a chartered institution, designed its own model without totally deviating from the CHED's model. It set its own neatly-packaged field-based experiences called Developmental Field Study Program (DFSP), which includes four field study (FS) courses, namely, FS1 (Observer), FS2 (Participant), FS3 (Student Teacher), and with FS 4 (Intern) which serves as the practicum component and in effect, culminates the FS Program.

Early immersion in the classroom, through the field study courses, provides the prospective teachers the experiential learning activities that are required in a cluster of professional education courses. The students earn two units for each of the three FS which they have to take before their six-unit FS4 or practicum course, making them earn a total of twelve (12) units for their field studies.

Past practices showed the wisdom of experiential activities required of the education students to undertake as an entry requirement to the twelve-unit student teaching. However, these experiences which were actually integrated with some professional education courses were not treated as separate courses until eventually, they had become just an optional activity in the professional education courses. This same observation had been found common among other teacher education institutions, particularly those with no laboratory schools.

Realizing the importance of such experience accorded to the students, CHED standardized this practice in TEIs so that all students enrolled in teacher education degree programs would have field study as a required component in the revised teacher education curriculum currently being implemented. This standardized practice through field study program clearly provides an opportunity for prospective teachers to make the theories learned in the classroom highly visible in the actual practice in the field. The implementation of FSP, however, has posed challenges to TEIs, more particularly, in the design and choice of an effective scheme.

Unlike other TEIs which do not have laboratory school and, therefore, have to send their FS students to the public or private schools, PNU has its own venue for the implementation of its FS program i.e. the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL). It has preschool, elementary, and high school classes, which could be observed and studied by FS students in all teacher education programs offered in the University.

PNU through the College of Education (CED) started implementing FS1 during the first semester of school year 2006-2007. Labeled as "Observers", FS1 students are expected to do actual field observations based on specific topics taken up in the first four professional education courses, namely, Professional Education 01(Foundations of Education); Prof Ed 02 (Child and Adolescent Development); Prof Ed 03 (Theories of Learning) and Prof Ed 05   (Guidance and Counseling). The first two courses were taken in the first quarter of the first semester, while the last two courses during the second quarter of the first semester of SY 2006-2007.

Four schemes of implementation have been explored with both the public schools and the CTL as program sites: 1) Scheme 1, CTL-based; 2) Scheme 2, Pilot schools-based;3) Scheme 3, CTL then Pilot schools-based; and 4) Scheme 4, Pilot schools then CTL-based. The use and involvement of the public schools as program sites appears to be inevitable since CTL could not accommodate the big number of students involved in FS not to mention the on-campus student teachers of the old curriculum who are also at the CTL and of course, the CTL students themselves. Therefore, the use of the four schemes in implementing FS 1 would prevent the problems of congestion at CTL which could be to the disadvantage of students accommodated at CTL.

In the implementation of FS 1, there were students assigned to undertake their field observation at CTL and those assigned to the pilot schools. Since these schemes are being explored on their pilot status until such a time that the best implementation scheme is identified.