EFL Teachers’ Strategies in Implementing the 21st Century Skills Applied in 2013 Curriculum

Curriculum is a guide that has a very crucial role in the learning process. As a guide that determines success in achievement in learning, it is necessary to make improvements in the preparation of the curriculum, therefore curriculum 13 is designed for learning in the 21st century. The aim of this research is to investigate the strategies of EFL teachers in applying the 21st century skills embedded in the 2013 curriculum. This research uses a qualitative research approach. Research data were obtained through in-depth interviews, document analysis, and observation. The data analysis in this research used descriptive qualitative. The findings of this study indicate that: 1) Four English teachers at SMAN 1 Pringgarata usedasking questions, group discussions, debates, role play, inquiry-based learning, project-based learning, and social media to teach, students acquire using these strategies learning skills, literacy skills, and life skills such as critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, communication, information literacy, media literacy, technology literacy, flexibility, social, and leadership skills in which these skills are embedded in 2013 curriculum 2) The problems faced by teachers were different characters of students, lack of student motivation, mastery of teaching strategies was low, crowded class, limited teaching time allotment, and lack of learning resources. 3) In overcoming this problem, the teacher offers several solutions to become an independent teacher in search of additional material, approaching students who have low motivation in class, have manuals to make the management class better, and use games in teaching to make learning fun.

DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED IN TEACHING AGRICULTURE AS A CORE PART OF T.L.E. IN THE PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLSIN GUINOBATAN, ALBAY

This study was conducted to determine the difficulties encountered in teaching Agriculture as a core part of Technology and Livelihood Education (TLE) in the Public Secondary Schools in Guinobatan, Albay. It discussed the profiles of 10 Agriculture teachers, the activities being conducted, the difficulties encountered, the extent of difficulty, the solutions applied by the teachers to address the difficulties encountered in line with classroom instruction and practical agriculture, and the proposed solutions to address the difficulties encountered. The study made used of questionnaire - checklist and rating scale as the instrument in data gathering. The data gathered were subjected to statistical analysis using frequency count, percentage and weighted mean to analyze the data obtained. The activities conducted by the Agriculture teachers during classroom instruction include oral recitation, paper and pencil test, and group activity. During practical agriculture, Horticulture teachers let their students plant crops but it was found out that none of them ever conducted soil sampling activity. For Animal Production, it was revealed that the activities conducted by the teachers were mere familiarization rather than actual demonstration of the subject. Moreover, teachers encountered numerous difficulties that serve as hindrances in their teaching profession. The difficulties they encountered during classroom instruction were the unavailability of resources, short time allotment, financial constraints and inability of the students to understand the lesson. On the practical agriculture, teachers encountered difficulties because of short time allotment, financial constraints in providing the needed materials to be used for hands-on laboratory, and lack of land, farm tools, equipment and facilities to support the practical aspects of the subject. As teachers, they applied solutions to address the difficulties encountered by consulting the principal/department head with regards to the unavailability of learning resources and farm resources. Teachers also used different teaching strategies so that slow learners can cope up in the class discussion and they extend time for hands-on laboratory.

Time Management Of Teachers And Its Relationship To Teaching Performance

This was a descriptive-correlational applied research which determined and analyzed the time management strategies of public elementary teachers in a district. The time management strategies of the teachers were related to their teaching performance. There were 103 elementary teachers in a district as respondents of the study. Since all teachers in the district were included as respondents of the study, the complete enumeration technique was employed as sampling technique. A time management questionnaire was developed by the researcher based on the activities that teachers need to accomplish and distributed with the help of the principals. The teachers indicated how many hours they spent on a particular task on a 24-hour basis. Weighted mean was used in analyzing the data on time management and Pearson R for the relationship of the time management of teachers and their teaching performance. Findings revealed that teachers were mostly very satisfactory in rendering their work, classroom teaching got the greatest number of time allotment among the teachers, teachers’ time management strategies ranged from using the internet for their needs in teaching to listing important tasks for the day to planning before classes start and working overtime at home to do tasks, work delegation was observed to be the least in their strategies to manage time. Furthermore, findings in this study showed that the teaching performance ratings of the teachers were not influenced by their time management strategies. It could be the tendency because most teachers had very satisfactory ratings. No one got satisfactory rating and only 12 were outstanding. If time management was not a factor, as the relationship test showed acceptance of null hypothesis, then the factor that determined or predicted teaching performance should be explored. The research then recommend that teachers should keep up with their positive teaching performance by giving the same passion and commitment towards work, they must continue giving most of their time in school to classroom instruction in order to produce pupils who are imbued with right values and knowledge and skills competence and they must embrace the challenge of the work responsibilities inherent to being a teacher. Teachers had practiced good time management because they allotted more time to classroom teaching and preparations to their core tasks as teachers. An action plan was developed to strengthen and sustain the time management strategies of teachers

Provider time allotment tracking tool to effectively manage assignment commitments

Due to the rising demand with limited health service capacity, managing available resources effectively becomes an important task to reduce patient care delays and avoid unnecessary and costly capacity expansions. At the same time, staff satisfaction and/or burnout is a complementary consideration when designing optimal schedules. Deviation from the scheduled plan can cause delays in patient access and may lead to unsatisfaction among providers. Balancing demand management, staff satisfaction and generating optimized schedules quickly reveals the need for a tool that tracks provider time allotment over time, especially for the academic healthcare organization where providers are committed to multiple assignments, clinical and non-clinical. This tracking tool should allow management to proactively adjust allotment to unplanned changes in the schedule and increase participation. In this study, a tool is developed to track monthly provider assignments for the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at Mayo Clinic, Rochester. The proposed tool produces two key outputs for each provider and assignment: 1) the recommended target workdays and 2) workday upper and lower bounds to accommodate for variability. This tracking tool is successfully implemented with implementation criteria, and the feedback is positive. The tool pulls the data systematically from the Mayo data platform and performs the necessary analysis on the data. It also automatically updates the values for the recommended target as well as upper and lower bounds for the remaining months in a year based on changes in the schedule so that provider commitment can be met at the end of year.

Parents’ Perception on Printed Modular Distance Learning in Canarem Elementary School: Basis for Proposed Action Plan

This was a descriptive study which determined and analyzed the perceptions of parents on the printed modular distance learning in an elementary school. There were 50 parent respondents selected via convenience sampling. Parents’ perceptions were along the manner of distributing modules, retrieval of modules, time allotment for learning activities, the learning activities in the module, assessment and observance of safety and health protocols in the distribution and retrieval of modules. Questionnaires were distributed to the parents through the Purok Leaders who were responsible in the distribution and retrieval of the learning modules. Weighted mean was used to analyze the responses of the parents in the questionnaires. Finding revealed that parents mostly agreed to the strategies in the distributing modules, retrieval of modules, time allotment for learning activities, the learning activities in the module, assessment and highly agreed to the observance of safety and health protocols in the distribution and retrieval of modules. However, parents claimed that time allotment in the completion of learning activities was insufficient since the activities were so many. In addition, some parents claimed that they could not understand some topics in the module so they could not help their children in answering the learning activities. The research then recommendedfor a review of the learning activities and conduct seminar for parents to guide them in assisting their children during their “classes “at home. An action plan was developed to improve the implementation of the modular learning in the new normal.

Why Neurology (or Not)? A Longitudinal Qualitative Study of Career Decision-Making of First-Year Medical Students

Objective:The growing shortage of neurologists is in part due to suboptimal recruitment. Little is known about students’ decision-making regarding a career in neurology, particularly early in training. Using a longitudinal qualitative approach, we aimed to understand factors that influence first-year medical students’ decisions about neurology.Methods:We conducted 1-on-1 semi-structured interviews with 15 first-year medical students at 1 institution before and after the pre-clinical neurology course (2018-2019). In the first interview, we asked about career intentions, factors likely to influence specialty choice, and perceptions of neurology. In the second interview, we asked about changes in students’ views over the year. Using thematic analysis we generated codes and clustered coded data into themes.Results:The two most prominent factors influencing career choice in general were lifestyle and personal interest. No students expressed concerns about lifestyle in neurology. Most students were neutral about neurology or had a positive personal interest, which typically increased after the neurology course. Students frequently worried about content difficulty and the curative potential of neurology.Conclusion:Interventions should include early education about the factors important to students in determining specialty choice, including lifestyle, and address potentially negative perceptions of neurology. Increasing time allotment to the pre-clinical neurology course may combat perception of the content as difficult.

Protocol Development in Clinical Trials for Healthcare Management

Clinical trial is a part of clinical research. It is a systematic experimental biomedical study. They are carried out to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of medications or medical devices or biologics. Trials are conducted to check safety and efficacy of new drug. It includes four phases as phase I, II, III, and IV. The study is carried out according to study protocol and standard operating procedures as per good clinical practices guidelines. The study protocol is developed by the researchers and approved by an independent committee called as Institutional Review Board. Protocol is a roadmap for team of healthcare professionals involved in investigation work. It should explain the significance of research trial, location, detail procedure, methods, activities, time allotment, financial estimate and any other information required. The content of protocol are title, objective, background, eligibility criteria, study methodology, risks or adverse effects, benefits, alternative treatment, data collection, statistical treatment, regulatory guidance, and other information.

Formative Assessment Performed by High School Teachers in the Pandemic Era

Assessment is an integral part of the learning and teaching process. Effective formative assessment is intended to improve students’ achievement and raise teacher’s quality. However, qualified formative assessment is rarely performed in a real classroom in this pandemic era. This paper describes how senior and vocational high school teachers conduct a formative assessment in this pandemic era. It focuses primarily on the type of task and activity offered, language skills and components covered, the fulfillment of good criteria of assessment, the development of students’ critical thinking, also the strengths and weaknesses of the assessment. The data collected by means of documents assessment created by the teachers. Data analysis was conducted by employing Miles, Huberman, and Saldana’s theory. The results indicate the teachers conducted formative assessment mostly via Google Classroom and WhatsApp. In assessing speaking and reading, teachers provide various texts followed dominantly by multiple choices tests. In writing, students are assigned to share their feeling and opinion about a movie or current topic and write texts based on picture series. Teachers also employed form-focused grammar activities. It is evident that some tasks promote students’ critical thinking. However, some tasks are not well-constructed in terms of suitability with basic competence, time allotment, and the level of difficulties. Therefore, it is questionable whether the purpose to make changes to instruction can be achieved or not.Keywords: changes to instruction, formative assessment, Google Classroom, pandemic era

Teachers’ and students’ appraisal of the ITEC English curriculum: A comparative study

With the holistic purpose of improving the language teaching and learning quality at the ITEC center of University of Science (Ho Chi Minh City), the paper focused on the students’ and teachers’ appraisal towards the current ITEC English curriculum. The survey study was conducted at the ITEC center of University of Science (Ho Chi Minh City) with the participation of 82 students and 20 teachers. The instruments included the questionnaires and the semi-structured interviews. The quantitative data obtained from the questionnaires were analyzed by SPSS version 20.0, while the qualitative data obtained from the interviews were thematically analyzed. The findings show that both the students and the teachers concurrently showed their positive affection and cognition towards the clear objectives, reasonable assessment modes, effective instructional materials, and helpful extensive practice. In addition, content of the ITEC English curriculum was emotionally and cognitively approved by both the teachers and the students; however, some students thought that the content lacked an emphasis of culture elements and updated realistic situations. Furthermore, while the teachers seemed to prefer the time allotment of the courses of the curriculum, many students did not express their favor or approval. Besides, a big proportion of the target students liked its instructional methods and believed in the usefulness of the instructional methods and delivery techniques, especially in developing and sharpening their language skills and test-taking skills as well. Nonetheless, some of the teachers did not feel these instructional methods impressive and were not compatible with their preferential styles.

Knowledge, attitude, motivation and planning of breastfeeding; A cross sectional study among Jordanian women.

Background In Jordan, the rate of exclusive breastfeeding is declining. The trend variation in breastfeeding practice is determined by different factors including antenatal women’s attitude and planning which are affected by their awareness and the support they receive. This study aims to assess knowledge, attitude, support, and planning of breastfeeding among Jordanian women.Methods A face-to-face cross sectional semi-structured questionnaire survey was conducted among healthy women in the antenatal clinic and postpartum ward at three hospitals in Northern Jordan during the period August 2019 to December 2019. Data were collected about demographic characteristics, women’s knowledge and attitude towards breastfeeding, antenatal and postnatal support and counseling, and feeding planning. Customized scales were utilized to assess knowledge and attitude. Factors associated with planning to breastfeed were reported.Results 660 women completed the survey questionnaire. The majority were 20 to 35 years of age. 10% were primiparous and 30% were employed. 78% were knowledgeable about breastfeeding benefits and aware of WHO recommendations. 72% had a positive attitude towards breastfeeding. More than half received support from their husbands to breastfeed their infants, while less than 20% received any counseling from their obstetric providers. 97% reported their intention to breastfeed, and more than half indicated their willing to exclusively breastfeed. With multilogistic regression model, predictors of EBF planning include primiparty (AOR 1.79 95% C.I 1.1, 3.25), positive attitude (AOR 1.80 95% C.I 1.05, 3.1) and positive husband’s support (AOR 1.92 95% C.I. 1.18, 3.15). Barriers include women’s employment (AOR 0.43 95% C.I. 0.26, 0.70) and low birth weight (AOR 0.46 95% C.I. 0.25, 0.84)Conclusion Jordanian women are highly knowledgeable about breastfeeding benefits, and they exhibit a positive attitude towards breastfeeding resulting in a very high percentage intending to breastfeed their infants. Limited counseling about breastfeeding is a major gap in antenatal care. As intentions might not reflect the actual practice after delivery, gaps and barriers affecting the determinants of successful breastfeeding should be identified, and corrective tools should be accordingly implemented. Assigning a specific time allotment for antenatal or postnatal counseling and support is expected to promote breastfeeding practice in our population.