Content Update – Teaching Multigrade #2

Community life and school activities lend more easily to mutual integration since multigrade school are
located in communities with small population.

The more parents are involved in their children’s education, the more they would likely to succeed in
school.

Multigrade schools have less resources, thus, the need to involve the community as source of
information and in providing for services and materials to improve the school.

DECS order no. 38, series 1993 – Improving access to elementary education by providing complete grade
levels in all public elementary schools through combination and/or multigrade class.

DECS order no. 96, series 1997 – Policies and guidelines in the organization and operation of multigrade
classes

DECS order no. 91, series 1997 – Special hardship allowance for multigrade teachers

DepEd Memo no. 289 series 2008 – National Training workshop for trainers in multigrade instruction

What are the benefits of multigrade teaching and learning?

Benefits for children

1. A multiaged class brings together children of different ages and stages of development in a
learning environment, which prepares them for real-life situations. A multiaged classroom is
more natural learning situation: for example, older children naturally helping younger ones.
2. The children often develop healthier social relationships and more positive attitudes. They get
on better with others, both children and adults.
3. The children will learn to be resourceful and more independent, self-directed learners and gain
the skills and attitudes of learning how to learn.
4. The children can learn social skills when working together in a small group, for examples,
leadership skills, organizational skills, listening, sharing, taking turns, mentoring and negotiating
skills.
5. The children can progress at their own pace of learning with the opportunities to join a faster or
slower group. Younger children benefit from the positive models of older children.

Benefits for teachers

1. Good multigrade teachers do not use the “chalk and talk” style of teaching. They have to be
flexible and use other excellent teaching and learning methods and strategies, for example,
cooperative group work, individual instruction, activity-centered approaches, group project,
cross-age peer tutoring etc. They become better all-round teachers, capable of tacking a wide
variety of situations.
2. Teacher can make the most of the inter-age multilevel situation to facilitate the learning
processes. The older children can be responsible and given opportunities to use their expertise
with younger children.
3. The teacher gets to know the children better as individuals when teaching them for 2 to 3 years
and is thus able to give them the right kind of help and guidance to suit the children’s individual
needs.
4. Teachers learn to work with different age groups and deal with curriculum content across
subject areas in an integrated approach.
5. Teachers can share the responsibility of teaching learning with the students, parents and other
community members.

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What does a successful multigrade teacher do?

Successful multigrade teachers, just like all good teachers, are well-prepared and well-
organized. They have an open mind and like to try out new ideas and be flexible and creative in
their practice. They believe in the importance of creating a co-operative family-type atmosphere
in the classroom. They will also have the ability to build solid, close relationships with the
community so that, in time parents will come to believe more strongly in the benefits for their
child in a multigrade class.

Good practices of a successful multi-grade teachers

1. A good knowledge of their students.

2. A collection of good co-operative learning games, activities and strategies
3. A good understanding of curriculum
4. Time-efficient planning techniques
5. Flexible time management
6. A variety of teaching and learning strategies

The graded school in the Philippines traditionally separates students on the basis of the number of
years in school. The multigrade classroom, however, is similar to the home or workplace learning
situation.

The focus in a multigrade class is about : What the individual learners can do and what they need to
learn next. In the multigrade classroom, the students can learn from each other and with each other.

Principles of Learning

1. Supportive learning environment

2. Opportunity to learn
3. Connection and challenge
4. Action and reflection
5. Motivation and purpose
6. Inclusivity and difference
7. Independence and collaboration

Creating a cooperative Learning Environment

The role of the teacher is very important for the success of cooperative learning groups in the classroom.
As the students are learning the cooperative learning skills they need to be:

1. modeled
2. clearly taught and
3. reinforced as the students are learning and using them.

Teaching cooperative learning can be done by the following methods:

1. Explaining the co-operative skill

2. Practicing the skills in co-operative
3. Giving feedback and reflection
4. Creating posters or charts for the classroom

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The first principle of learning is to establish a supportive learning environment where students feel
valued and challenged and are able to work together collaboratively. We learn when our emotions a re
positive.

What is cooperative learning?

Cooperative learning involves students working together in small teams or groups on a shared task to
achieve a common objective. Each student may be responsible for a specific part of the group tasks and
the group will only be successful if everyone does their work.

For students to work together in a cooperative team or group, they will need to be taught specific
cooperative learning skills. Teach one or two of these skills at a time as the situation need to improve
different ways to work together.

Cooperative Learning Skills

1. Active listening
2. Taking turns
3. Asking good questions
4. Respecting others
5. Negotiating
6. Sharing
7. Helping and encouraging others
8. Problem solving
9. Decision making
10. Conflict resolution

Why is cooperative learning a useful strategy for multigrade class?

The students learn from each other by actively participating, hearing and seeing what others can do.
They are more motivated to work and usually learn more. Students are more likely to develop respect
for each other and tolerance of each other’s differences. Cooperative learning helps build a positive
supportive learning environment.

Organizing the physical space

A well-organized classroom will contain: space, a variety of different learning center spaces, floor space,
spaces for small group, places for students to work independently, display area, flexible desk/chair
combination, reading area, storage area.

Learning centers are important teaching and learning tool in a multigrade class because students can
work independently or in groups with minimal supervision from the teacher. It is an area of a classroom
where students go to learn new knowledge and practice skills independently. Importantly, they will
include self-instructional materials, which may range from list of things to do, activity cards or tasks
cards, self-checking work cards.

Catering different grades

In a multigrade class there needs to be a variety of tasks for different students needing different levels of
work.

A learning center could include task cards requiring different levels of thinking. For example: Easier level
task cards, second level of thinking, third level of thinking

The task cards should be color coded in some way to show the different levels of difficulty. Some task
cards could have open-ended activities for all students to complete at their own level – e.g. one problem
with different solutions.

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