UNIT 7:

Professionalism and
Transformative Education
The 21st
Century
Teacher
 “If we teach today as we taught
yesterday, we rob our children of
tomorrow”
-John Dewey
• To remain relevant and interesting, the teacher must possess 21st Century Skills. The
21st Century Skills can be categorized into four (4) namely:
- Communication skills;
- Learning and innovation skills;
- Information, media, and technology skills; and
- Life and career skills
• A teacher must possess these skills in order to survive in this 21st century and be able to
contribute to the development of the 21st century learners. Under each of these four
clusters of 21st century skills are specific skills.
1. EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION SKILLS include:
- Teaming
- Collaboration
- Interpersonal skills
- Local, national, and global orientedness
- Interactive communication
2. LEARNING AND INNOVATION SKILLS include:
- Creativity
- Curiosity
- Critical thinking problem solving skills
- Risk Taking
3. INFORMATION, MEDIA, AND TECHNOLOGY SKILLS are:
- Visual and information literacies
- Media literacy
- Basic, scientific, economic, and technologies literacies
- Multicultural literacy
4. LIFE AND CAREER SKILLS are:
- Flexibility and adaptability
- Initiative and self-direction
- Leadership and responsibility
- Social and cross-cultural skills
- Productivity and accountability
- Ethical, moral, and spiritual values
Another way of grouping the 21st Century Skills is shown below:
a. Ways of thinking. Creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving, decision-
making and learning
b. Ways of working. Communication and collaboration
c. Tools for working. Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and
information literacy
d. Skills for living in the world. Citizenship, life and career, and personal and
social responsibility
Transformative
Education
• Transformative education involves teaching and learning geared to motivate and
empower happy and healthy learners to take informed decisions and actions at the
individual, community and global levels.
• Learners must engage with the world and find coherence between the world they
experience in school and the world we all wish to build outside school.
• To build this world, we need to learn to read and write, but we also need to learn
collaboration, empathy, complex problem solving, connection to other human beings
and nature.
• Education can only be “transformative” when students feel valued, acknowledged, safe
and are included in the learning community as full and active members. This starts by
preventing and addressing school violence and bullying, gender-based violence, as well
as health and gender related discrimination towards learners and educators.
• Teachers are expected to transform their teaching, for example, ensuring that the
curriculum, pedagogy, learning materials, schools or learning environments are
meaningful in the natural, political, economic, and cultural contexts. For education to be
of high quality, it must be transformative.
WHY DO WE NEED TO TRANSFORM EDUCATION?
• Our world is facing unprecedented challenges - climate change, violent and
hateful ideologies, mass loss of biodiversity, new conflicts and the risks of global
pandemics to name only a few.
• Education systems need to be reoriented to equip learners with the knowledge,
values, and abilities to act for the betterment of all people and the planet, as
responsible citizens of a global community.
Qualification
Framework
• The ASEAN Qualifications Reference Framework (AQRF) is a regional common
reference framework which functions as a device to enable comparisons of qualifications
across ASEAN Member States (AMS).
• It addresses all education and training sectors and promotes the wider objective of
lifelong learning.
• The ASEAN Charter (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Charter’), signed by the ten
ASEAN Leaders (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Leaders’) in Singapore on 20
November 2007, provides the basis for a region-wide qualifications reference
framework in ASEAN.
• The Charter aims to “create a single market and production base which is stable,
prosperous, highly competitive and economically integrated with effective facilitation for
trade and investment in which there is free flow of goods, services and investment;
facilitated movement of business persons, professionals, talents and labor; and free flow
of capital” and to “develop human resources through closer cooperation in education
and lifelong learning and in science and technology, for the empowerment of the
peoples of ASEAN and the strengthening of the ASEAN Community”.
WHAT IS THE PHILIPPINE QUALIFICATIONS FRAMEWORK (PQF)?
• The Philippine Qualifications Framework describes the levels of educational qualifications,
the official recognition of a person’s learning achievements. It also sets the standards for
qualification outcomes which are the knowledge or skills gained by students after undergoing a
certain learning or educational program.
• Adopting a well-developed qualifications framework presents several benefits to learners,
academe, workers, professionals, employers, industry and government.
• The PQF provides a standard for the recognition of certificates and licenses that individuals may
move and progress through. It shows pathways and equivalences to help them make informed
choices in education and employment growth. As such the framework promotes mobility,
encourages lifelong learning and builds the workforce confidence.
• As the PQF establishes a standard for education and training providers, it helps guarantee that
these providers adhere to specific benchmarks and are accountable for achieving the same,
ultimately ensuring the quality of education and training. In addition, since the PQF provides
common understanding of policies and guidelines in curriculum/program formulation and
implementation, it also allows for the seamless movement and progression of learners to and
from different education and training institutions.
• With the PQF, job mismatch can be reduced and productivity increased. It provides
employers with specific training standards and qualifications that are aligned to industry
requirements. The PQF provides employers immediate information on what a worker can
be expected to know and do, and are further assured that qualifications are consistent and
are based on standards.
• The Philippine Qualifications Framework can help form unity as it harmonizes
education and training qualifications in the country by establishing and institutionalizing
qualification standards. It provides the government with common standards, taxonomy,
and typology of qualifications as bases for granting approvals to stakeholders. Moreover, the
PQF helps policy and planning formulation through comparison with the qualification
frameworks of other nations, encouraging the forging of mutual recognition arrangements
within the ASEAN and other countries.
• For Filipinos, the PQF coordinates and balances education and employment opportunities
for nation building and holistic economic growth. The PQF and its features (Quality
Assurance, Qualification Registrar, Pathways and Equivalencies and International
Alignment) strengthens technical education consolidates education and employment
resources.
 OBJECTIVES OF THE PQF
1. To establish national standards and levels for outcomes of education and training.
2. To support the development and maintenance of pathways and equivalencies which
provide access to qualifications and assist people to move easily and readily between
the different E & T sectors and between these sectors and the labor market.
3. To align the PQF with international qualifications framework to support the national
and international mobility of workers thru increased recognition of the value and
comparability of Philippine qualifications.
 National Competency
Based Teacher Standard
(NCBTS)
• The NCBTS provides a single framework that shall define effective teaching in all aspects
of a teacher’s professional life and in all phases of teacher development.
It consists of seven (7) domains:
1. DOMAIN 1. SOCIAL REGARD FOR LEARNING (SRFL)
- The SRFL domain focuses on the ideal that teachers serve as positive and powerful
role models of the value in the pursuit of different efforts to learn. The teacher’s action,
statements, and different types of social interactions with students exemplify this ideal.
2. DOMAIN 2. LEARNING ENVIRONMENT (LE)
- This domain focuses on importance of providing a social, psychological and physical
environment within which all students, regardless of their individual differences in learning, can
engage in the different learning activities and work towards attaining high standards of learning.
3. DOMAIN 3. DIVERSITY OF LEARNERS (DOL)
- The DOL domain emphasizes the ideal that teachers can facilitate the learning
process even with diverse learners, by recognizing and respecting individual differences and by
using knowledge about their differences to design diverse sets of learning activities to ensure
that all learners can attain the desired learning goals.
4. DOMAIN 4. CURRICULUM (CURR.)
- The curriculum domain refers to all elements of the teaching-learning process that work in
convergence to help students understand the curricular goals and objectives, and to attain high standards of
learning defined in the curriculum. These elements include the teacher’s knowledge of subject matter and the
learning process, teaching-learning approaches and activities, instructional materials and learning resources.
5. DOMAIN 5. PLANNING, ASSESSING & REPORTING (PAR)
- This domain refers to the alignment of assessment and planning activities. In particular, the PAR
focuses on the (1) use of assessment data to plan and revise teaching-learning plans; (2) integration of
assessment procedures in the plan and implementation of teaching-learning activities, and (3) reporting of the
learners’ actual achievement and behavior.
6. DOMAIN 6. COMMUNITY LINKAGES (CL)
- The LC domain refers to the ideal that classroom activities are meaningfully linked to the
experiences and aspirations of the learners in their homes and communities. Thus, this domain focuses on
teachers’ efforts directed at strengthening the links between schools and communities to help in the
attainment of the curricular goals.
7. DOMAIN 7. PERSONAL GROWTH & PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT (PGPD)
- The PGPD domain emphasizes the ideal that teachers value having a high personal regard for the
teaching profession, concern for professional development, and continuous improvement as teachers.
 The Philippine
Professional Standards
for Teachers (PPST)
 ROLE OF TEACHERS
• Teachers play a crucial role in nation building. Through quality teachers, the Philippines
can develop holistic learners who are steeped in values, equipped with 21st century skills,
and able to propel the country to development and progress.
• This is in consonance with the Department of Education vision of producing:
“Filipinos who passionately love their country and whose values and competencies
enable them to realize their full potential and contribute meaningfully to building the
nation” (DepEd Order No. 36, s. 2013).
• Evidences show unequivocally that good teachers are vital to raising student
achievement, i.e., quality learning is contingent upon quality teaching. Hence, enhancing
teacher quality becomes of utmost importance for long-term and sustainable nation
building.
• The changes brought about by various national and global frameworks such as the K to
12 Reform and the ASEAN integration, globalization, and the changing character of the
21st century learners necessitate improvement and adaptability of education, and a call
for the rethinking of the current teacher standards.
PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS FOR TEACHERS
• The Philippine Government has consistently pursued teacher quality reforms through a
number of initiatives. As a framework of teacher quality, the National Competency-Based
Teacher Standards (NCBTS) was institutionalized through CHED Memorandum
Order No. 52, s. 2007 and DepED Order No. 32, s. 2009.
• It emerged as part of the implementation of the Basic Education Sector Reform Agenda
(BESRA), and was facilitated by drawing on the learning considerations of programs, such
as the Basic Education Assistance for Mindanao (BEAM), the Strengthening
Implementation of Visayas Education (STRIVE) project and the Third Elementary
Education Project (TEEP).
• The K to 12 Reform (R.A. 10533) in 2013 has changed the landscape of teacher quality
requirements in the Philippines. The reform process warrants an equivalent supportive focus
on teacher quality – high quality teachers who are properly equipped and prepared to
assume the roles and functions of a K to 12 teachers.
• The Philippine Professional Standards for Teachers, which is built on NCBTS,
complements the reform initiatives on teacher quality from pre-service education to in-
service training.
• It articulates what constitutes teacher quality in the K to 12 Reform through well-defined
domains, strands, and indicators that provide measures of professional learning, competent
practice, and effective engagement.
• This set of standards makes explicit what teachers should know, be able to do and value to
achieve competence, improved student learning outcomes, and eventually quality education. It is
founded on teaching philosophies of learner-centeredness, lifelong learning, and
inclusivity/inclusiveness, among others.
• The professional standards, therefore, become a public statement of professional accountability
that can help teachers reflect on and assess their own practices as they aspire for personal
growth and professional development.
• The Philippine Professional Standards for Teachers defines teacher quality in the
Philippines. The standards describe the expectations of teachers’ increasing levels of knowledge,
practice and professional engagement.
• At the same time, the standards allow for teachers’ growing understanding, applied with
increasing sophistication across a broader and more complex range of teaching/learning
situations.
• The 7 Domains collectively comprise 37 strands that refer to more specific dimensions of
teacher practices.
DOMAIN 1: CONTENT KNOWLEDGE AND PEDAGOGY, is composed of seven
strands:
- Content knowledge and its application within and across curriculum areas
- Research-based knowledge and principles of teaching and learning
- Positive use of ICT
- Strategies for promoting literacy and numeracy
- Strategies for developing critical and creative thinking, as well as other higher-
order thinking skills
- Mother Tongue, Filipino and English in teaching and learning
- Classroom communication strategies
DOMAIN 2: LEARNING ENVIRONMENT, consists of six strands:
- Learner safety and security Philippine Professional Standards for Teachers
- Fair learning environment
- Management of classroom structure and activities
- Support for learner participation
- Promotion of purposive learning
- Management of learner behavior
DOMAIN 3: DIVERSITY OF LEARNERS, consists of five strands:
- Learners’ gender, needs, strengths, interests and experiences
- Learners’ linguistic, cultural, socio-economic and religious backgrounds
- Learners with disabilities, giftedness and talents
- Learners in difficult circumstances
- Learners from indigenous groups
DOMAIN 4: CURRICULUM AND PLANNING, includes five strands:
- Planning and management of teaching and learning process
- Learning outcomes aligned with learning competencies
- Relevance and responsiveness of learning programs
- Professional collaboration to enrich teaching practice
- Teaching and learning resources including ICT
DOMAIN 5: ASSESSMENT AND REPORTING, is composed of five strands:
- Design, selection, organization and utilization of assessment strategies
- Monitoring and evaluation of learner progress and achievement
- Feedback to improve learning
- Communication of learner needs, progress and achievement to key stakeholders
- Use of assessment data to enhance teaching and learning practices and programs
DOMAIN 6: COMMUNITY LINKAGES AND PROFESSIONAL
ENGAGEMENT, consists of four strands:
- Establishment of learning environments that are responsive to community
contexts Philippine Professional Standards for Teachers
- Engagement of parents and the wider school community in the educative process
- Professional ethics
- School policies and procedures
DOMAIN 7: PERSONAL GROWTH AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT,
contains five strands:
- Philosophy of teaching
- Dignity of teaching as a profession
- Professional links with colleagues
- Professional reflection and learning to improve practice
- Professional development goals