THE GOOD SIDES OF SENDONG

Sendong came to Cagayan de Oro and left tragic memories most especially to the people who were affected by the tropical storm. Many lives have disappeared by an instant, lots of houses and properties have been destroyed, and people experienced water crisis and some acquired leptospirosis. These incidents, however they are negative ones, there are still lots of good sides that had happened due to Sendong. One positive effect is that we can see that the Filipino people helping one another and do the “bayanihan” thing. It only shows that Filipino people cared for their fellow Filipinos who were affected by the storm. Many volunteered themselves and gave their efforts and time to help. Many donated food, clothing and other things that the victims need most. Many cared for those people and many comforted them by giving their time to listen and letting them feel they are not alone. I can also say that what happened to Sendong is a pile of lessons that God wants us to learn from it. Now, from what had happened, people realized that the disaster is a way of God saying that “Take good care of your environment”. God created the sea, the land, the mountains and everything around us but what did the people do? People wasted too much of it. There are many illegal loggers and they gain profit and money by destroying the forests and the worst fact is that they are not replacing the trees they logged with new ones. In addition, many people are not even disciplined. They tend to throw their garbage everywhere and not even caring that they already contributed to the thing we called as “Global warming”. I remember once a speaker in a disaster prevention seminar said, “The issue is not focused on Global warming but instead, it’s on “Global warning”. What that speaker said made a big impact on me. He is very right. It is a warning that people should not take for granted. It is a warning that telling the people to change and that change is for the better. For the environment, we should care and will not do things that would cause to destroy it. People also realized the precious value of “Water”. Water is life I can say and that I prefer our electricity will be gone rather than water. It is not easy to have no water. It is one that sustains us to keep living and if water would be lost, what will happen to the people? That thing happened to the people of Cagayan de Oro. People experienced water crisis and they realized that water is far more important and we should never ever waste it. The people have also reali

zed the value of the “Family and love ones”. It is like saying that spend everyday with your family as if it’s like your last day because you’ll never know when will God call us and say “Come to me”. You have to cherish and make them smile and let them feel how much you love them so that you’ll never have regrets in the future. It’s just like you have to Live, love and laugh for the days of your life. ♥

TRANSFORMATIVE CURRICULUM

i. INTRODUCTION
Transformative Education is an education that empowers a lot more concern on the whole being of the learners. This Curriculum Education does not only develop the mere intellect of the learners but rather, the personal and social transformation has also taken into account. As English writer G.k. Chesterton once said, “every education teaches a philosophy of life, if not explicitly, then by suggestion, by implication, by atmosphere. If the different parts of that education do not cohere or connect with each other; if the educational process as a whole does not combine to convey a coherent view of life; if, in the end, it does not empower and transform, then, it is not education at all.” A transformative education is one in which the student is incrementally invited to engage life, to reflect upon it and, then, to be of service to our world.
By transformation, we mean to bring about changes, changes that carry out the individual to be a better person of himself and a functional member of the community and the society. Transformative Education is really of big help in molding the totality of all the learners. Thus, there's no doubt that this Curriculum is learner centered. The needs, interests, and the desires of the learners are considered to ensure that to learn is not that dull and boring for the learners. In this Curriculum, we can view the learner as an active recipient of knowledge since there is a great interaction between teachers and the learners. The teacher is not the only one who delivers the lesson and transmits knowledge to the learners but rather, learners also have the role of sharing their perspectives in each lesson that should be discussed.
Transformative Education is not fixed and rigid, but rather, it has the characteristic of being flexible and dynamic. Adjustments can be done and can be carried out unlike that of the traditional or non transformative education, making it more advantageous.

ii. PRESENTATION PROPER
TRANSFORMATIVE EDUCATION
CURRICULUM
Objectives go beyond providing necessary skills, knowledge, values and beliefs.
It provides the students with the capacity for critical thinking, social awareness, and commitment to empowerment for social action.
It is not simply a grocery of 3R's and must be's. It starts with envisioning the responsible, free, active citizen as the final product and looks at the curriculum as defining comprehensive (and complicated) process that molds the youth into this kind of person.
 It goes beyond the didactic process of lessons to be learned and excuses to be accomplished, but encompasses a lot more in the formation of the individual.
 It has to be interdisciplinary, so that learning is extended to other discipline for a holistic formation of an individual.
 It should go beyond the classroom and include the learning processes derived from peer sharing and the students look forward to every school day and where much of the student's formations occur.
AN EMERGING VIEW OF CURRICULUM DEVELPOMENT
The features below highlight the centrality of teachers:
• COLLABORATIVE: Practitioners and researchers engaged in collaborative action work together as a group continually defining and redefining the purpose of research.

• CRITICAL: Underlying assumptions and beliefs are acknowledged; curriculum trends, policies, and practices are seen to be problematic and contestable; and further action is tied to critical frameworks which focus on social justice and empowerment for all.
• ACTION-ORIENTED: Demanding direct involvement and influence from the real world experience of practitioners where the problems of practice are framed, possible solutions are determined, solutions are enacted, and results are reviewed, reflected upon, and reconstructed.
• HONEST: Generating high levels of trust and relationship building among all the participants.
• CONTRIBUTING: Roles are negotiated not imposed, and responsibilities are clearly defined and self determined.
• COMMUNICATIVE: Interaction among group members occurs.
• REAL: Realistic expectations are set regarding time lines, and what's possible in particular contexts.
• EQUITABLE: Power and authority over design, process and outcomes are shared.
• MEANINGFUL: Teachers are valued as persons not as research objects, they are actively involved in the research process, and they can tell their story.
• REPRESENTATIVE: Acknowledgement of the professional, social, and emotional needs of teachers takes place.
• SUSTAINED: Time for reflection and reconstruction is an integral feature of the process.
• TRANSFORMATIVE: Empowerment to make change happen and not just to explain or understand it is of utmost importance.


CRITICAL THINGKING: A MAJOR SKILL
It is the ability to discuss and analyze independently in order to judge correctedness, to see the ability and willingness to reflect on or oversee one's own mental functioning and to assess their own performance.
It is also the ability to reflect on and regulate one's thought and behaviors.
It uses metacognitive strategies for understanding. Metacognitive skills include taking conscious control of learning, planning and selecting strategies, monitoring the progress of learning, correcting errors, analyzing the effectiveness of the learning strategies and changing learning behaviors and strategies when necessary.
Without those guarantees, this freedom of conscience, this right to think freely for each child or youth in the school, a student cannot leave to think critically and become developed as a whole person. What prevails is just pouring of knowledge, or parroting what the teachers say. It's a mere spoon feeding technique.
This is developed through monitoring progress of learning, correcting errors, analyzing effectiveness of learning strategies and changing behavior when necessary, training in scientific logic and method that allows each person to recognize independent truth and reality.

iii. CRITIQUE

The Transformative Education has the content and objectives that will suit the learner's needs and expectations. It definitely aims to bring about a total transformation for the learner to be a well developed, rounded individual. For a curriculum that aims for transformation, there is a great possibility that the learners will gain what they have to gain and they also can share what they have to share.
When we look on the traditional or non-transformative education, it shows a lot of differences from that of the transformative one. Traditional education is just simply pouring of knowledge to the individual and the learner himself is a passive recipient because the teacher is the only one who keeps on transmitting knowledge to the learner. Thus, the learner doesn't have the opportunity of sharing his/her thoughts and perspectives. But when we look on the transformative education, learners are then given an opportunity to be actively engaged in the class discussions and activities. Allowing them to explore and discover things on their own and reflect on their works and criticize it afterwards.
Collaboration between the teacher and the learners is present in a transformative education. A harmonious atmosphere that allows the teacher and the learners to interact with one another helps a lot in letting the learners be exposed to different views, opinions and perspectives allowing them to reflect and to criticize, developing the learners to be a critical thinker that let them think and analyze things deeply and thoroughly.
Transformative education is learner centered rather than content oriented. The curriculum aims to provide the learners' needs and expectations so that a better
individual can be molded up. Teaching students while considering their needs and desires makes a curriculum a lot better rather than just merely focusing to teach on what the content says by not even considering the learners' needs and expectations.
To implement this educational approach, there are certain factors that must be considered. One of the factors is the teacher. Teachers are the one who are going to be the mentors and the facilitators of the learning process. They are the one who delivers the lessons and interacts with the learners. In this connection, teachers must have the necessary qualities and skills that can deal with the diverse situations in the learning process. Another important factor is the learners themselves. A school couldn't exist without them. With the succession of the transformative education's goals and objectives, learners must show willingness to participate in the said curriculum.

iv. CONCLUSION
Transformative Education therefore is an Education which aims to develop the learners' totality. It brings about change that makes the individual transform into a better person. It shapes not only the intellect but also the character and attitude of the learners. It includes collaboration and partnership between the teacher and the learners. Transformative education develops skills for critical thinking that they may understand, analyze and think deeply in every way possible.
It is a curriculum that molds and makes a learner a "human being" by being a human not only in words, but also in actions. It produces a product that can be proud of. Learners are molded to be responsible so that they can be effective members of the community and the society; thus, making a personal and social transformation.
Transformative Education sees the teachers as the facilitator of the learners that guides the learners all throughout and not by a mere source of knowledge that only makes a transmission and not giving guidance to satisfy the learners' needs and cravings to learn things. Transformative Education sees learners as an active participant of the teaching and learning process that allows them to actively engage themselves to class discussions and activities. In this way, learners are more motivated to learn more and crave for more discoveries and explorations because they are given an opportunity to look out things and share their own perspectives.
In Transformative Education, we expect one word that will absolutely define this kind of curriculum and that word is to bring about "Change".

v. BIBLIOGRAPHY

 Salana, J., Bernales, R. (2008).Curriculum development. Mutya publishing house, Inc.
 http://alumni.luc.edu, (2010).Transformative education. retrieved from:http://alumni.luc.edu/site/DocServer/Transformative_Education.pdf?docID=3141
 Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, (2010).Transform. retrieved from: http://www.merriam-webster.com/

GROUP WORK

Hazel B. Paclar
BEED SPED 2x3
"EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY"
GROUP WORK

INTRODUCTION
Group work is practiced in many schools around the world. Many authors have made a lot of definitions about what Group work means and what it involves. This paper contains the description and analysis of the group learning process, my experiences in the involvement of a group work , synthesis of readings and researches, and a reflection with regards to group work and learning community. The basic ingredient of group work to be successful lies within the cooperation of each members of a group. To learn cooperatively is the basic objective of the group work. It is much accepted nowadays that group work is indeed effective than self study. You can gain lots of ideas and knowledge because group work is doing a task at hand with the cooperation and collaboration of all of the members of the entire group. They help each other hand in hand and also, they learn from each other. With group work that mixed with collaboration, the task to be done become much simpler, easier and faster than doing it alone. In this way, I can impart my experiences and also, to make my readers know how amusing to be a part of a group work.
WHAT IS GROUP WORK AND HOW IT FACILITATES LEARNING?
(Wikipedia foundation,Inc.,2010) defines Group work as a "form of cooperative learning. It aims to cater for individual differences, develop students' knowledge, generic skills (e.g. communication skills, collaborative skills, critical thinking skills) and attitudes". This means that group work is done cooperatively and it considers the differences of individuals that will develop their own field of strengths in the different areas of learning. By doing a group task, members of the group do their very best to help one another and by completing the task together. By means of doing group work, Collaboration is the very essential part of the group learning process. (Scott London,2010) says Collaboration "is to work together"(Para. 6). Without collaboration of the members, group work isn't possible to exist effectively. It depends on the members on how they lend a hand to each other in order for the group work to be successful. It is said that learning with others is more effective than learning with self activity. Self activity is also very important because you learn from your own effort without the help of others yet the learning that will arise is just limited unlike learning with others because learning with others can widen up every perspective of the members and from one idea to another, they can foresee and can make another idea from the previous idea that is presented. Meaning, with group work, learning is continuous.

I, AS A MEMBER OF A GROUP WORK
(A description and analysis of the group learning process)
I became part of a group work in which I myself is actively participating. Together with my colleagues, we are asked to do a task in which we are about to design our own learning community. To know the task, I wasn't able to be nervous at all since what's on my mind is that the task will definitely be easy if we, in our group just cooperate. Our learning community is about Educational Arts. We intend to make this our subject because we want to design a learning community that both learning and arts resides. For us, the designers of this site has the aim to help individuals cope up with learning through different categories of arts which best interests them. (e.g., Photography, Drama, Painting, Drawing, Handicrafts, Architecture, Dance, Drama, Music, and many others.). (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2010) defines arts as modes of expression that use skill or imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others (Para. 1). This means that arts is something that results from our imaginations, the different expressions of our feelings for which comes from our senses. In this, we want to let the members of the community learn through the form of arts. While they learn, they also develop their creativity skills and be able to enjoy what they are doing.

SYNTHESIS OF READINGS AND RESEARCHES
(Wikipedia foundation,Inc.,2010) defines Educational Technology as the integrating of Blogs, Podcasts, Wikis, and other types of interactive technologies into the classroom to engage students and enhance the learning experience(Para. 1). Meaning, Educational technology is learning with the use of technology. There are lots of things that I had learned in Educational Technology. It doesn't fail to let me learn many things that I have never explored before. From the different online activities and classes that I had done, from the topical videos that I had watched, from the articles that I had read, and from all the experiences to become part of a learning community, the best thing that I'd experienced is that we created our own design of a learning community. I, together with my colleagues, worked hand in hand to select the best subject of design. We shared ideas and opinions and we came up with the best possible idea that we all agreed upon. We decided to make an Educational arts design of a learning community and from that on, we wasted no time and read some articles and different resources with regards to Educational arts. We collaborate and unify the things we had discovered and come up with the production of one entity and that is the Educational arts learning community design.

MY REFLECTION ON HOW THE GROUP LEARNING PROCESS INFORM MY EXPERIENCES OF LEARNING COMMUNITIES
The group learning process that I encountered widens my perspective about learning communities. Learning communities are of big help especially for the students like me. With the group task that was given to us, I explored, discovered, I walk around many possibilities in many situations at hand. It expanded my ideas and thoughts into a much larger views. I became informant and recognizes the importance and the purposes of every learning community that exists. A learning community is open to all ages and to those who wants to gain more knowledge. Scores of information are provided and shared. People in the community collaborate and are actively participating to engage into a much more meaningful learning. My experiences for involving in a learning community had taught me a lot. As (Vernon Sanders Law, 2010) says "Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards". It gives a lesson in which we can never forget.

CONCLUSION:
In general, Group work, as one way of cooperative learning plays a very important role in Education. In this type of learning, learning can't be limited with the idea of a single person but with the ideas, reflections and opinions of the entire members of the group as a whole and it widens the knowledge and ideas gained. It is of big help especially for the students since it ensures continuous learning and interest that encourages them to learn more.

REFERENCES:
1. Wikipedia, (2010). Group work. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_work
2. Scott London, (2010). Collaboration and Community. Retrieved from http://www.scottlondon.com/reports/ppcc.html
3. Encyclopedia Britannica, (2010). The Arts. Retrieved from: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/36405/the-arts
4. Wikipedia (2010). Edtech. Retrieved from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edtech
5. (Vernon Sanders Law, 2010). Experience. Retrieved from: http://www.worldofquotes.com/topic/experience/index.html

group work

1. What I like most about group work?
- What I like most in group work is that there is collaboration among the members of the group and we tend to share our ideas and thought together to make a very creative and better work. It also makes the work one easier.
2. What I dislike most about group work?
- What I dislike most about group work is that when the members are not cooperating and irresponsible.
3. What makes a good team player?
- A good team player is to be cooperative and responsible enough to contribute in the group.
4. What makes a bad team player?
- A bad team player is to be irresponsible and not participative in doing group tasks.
5. What grade are you hoping to achieve for this project?
- Hopefully, I want to achieve the grade of 95 percent.
6. What are your strengths in relation to this project?
- In my own, I think, I can best contribute ideas and thoughts in my mind so that I can be helpful enough to my group mates. Being cooperative is also my strength.
7. What are your weaknesses?
- My weakness could be my laziness and tardiness at times.
8. How would you like to arrange meeting?
- For me, I would like to arrange meeting both face to face and online meetings.
9. How do you think the group should make a decision?
- I think, the group should make any decisions with the agreement of all or majority of its members.
10. What if a group member doesn’t meet our standards? How do you think we should deal with this?
- When a group member doesn’t meet our standards, we should deal with them by approaching that member in a right way and let him know what he should improve.

Hedberg06

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