It’s been almost two years since I was appointed chairperson of the religious and values education department and head edtech coach of Xavier School in San Juan City, Philippines.
Before, I taught 6th Grade students values and religious education. Values education is required in the national Philippine curriculum and RE is mandatory in schools that teach Christian morality and teachings.
The integrated discipline aims to help students make sense of their identity in relation to their self, family, community, faith and the bigger global society. To do this, I employed various teaching and learning approaches to promote critical thinking, such as visible thinking routines and using technology to allow multimodal learning. As a school, we focus on fostering student-driven learning. Therefore, most of our units or lessons always end with a challenge to transfer their learning to solve real-life problems.
As teachers, we hope to help our students become comfortable and confident with risk-taking through designing learning experiences (project-based, problem-based, or challenge-based learning) that encourage making courageous decisions, learning from mistakes and collaborating with others.
Francis Jim Tuscano is chairperson of the religious and values education department and head edtech coach at Xavier School, San Juan City, Philippines