Strengthening Competence and Mentoring the High School Teachers Teaching Social Studies for the K-12 Curriculum in Division of Valencia City, Mindanao, Philippines

Abstract

The Philippine government is in the transition of the implementation of the K-12 curriculum program. The implementation of the new curriculum made significant changes since it emphasize the shift of the new learning standards where the learning competencies should be output based and students centered. The study was conducted to evaluate the readiness of the social studies teachers on their knowledge, competencies and skills to deliver the new standards of education. The study revealed that high school social studies teachers had great challenges in dealing with K-12 program where students must have deeper understanding of the things/events surrounding him and learned the mastery of using skills and values of appreciation, analysis, and responsibility, productive and must be able to contribute solutions to the problems surrounding him. Thus, teachers must undergo more interventions for capacity development to enrich their knowledge on the multiple disciplines of social sciences. Further, they need to learn more output based teaching strategies in using multiple resources to exposed their students to multiple and contradictory viewpoints, and encouraged to seek their own position based on reliable information.

Keywords: Curriculum, Social Studies, Teachers