Im reading a new book now entitled, "aim high, achieve more- how to transform urban schools through fearless leadership". And i can say its really an inspiring book- give you that boost that you need. fearless is one of the things i dont have. i do fear about so many thing. despite my ideals and principles, i fear to follow my principles and beliefs all the way because i know i live in a society where to survive you need to "go with the flow". but thats far from what i believe in. i believe in being just, being transparent, being honest, being true to oneself, being appropriate. but in a society like ours, it seems like being all these things will just harm you instead of help you. everything is a gamble in the Philippines. from bluffing to being selfish, these are what it takes to survive. but i dont want to raise our oakridge kids this way. i will never teach them to settle for mediocre. i will never impart to them that its okay to cheat. i want them to be educated, principled and cultured filipinos.

Its really a different kind of weekend i had this time. Not only have i spent a lot of time researching on the Marcos regime, i reflected a lot of what our society needs to solve our daily issues. ferdinand. Marcos indeed was a magnificent visionary. My husband is one of those that oast n Marcos' brilliance. When he declared Martial Law, it was a time where our country needs discipline, strong leadership and forced obedience to the law. By the way, we need the same thing today. But what drove him to his downfall - to our country's downfall is his extravance, his wife's dark ambition to rule the world wihout upholding the love for our Motherland. I believe Ferdinand Marcos would have been a remarkable leader if his brilliance, vision and brains work hand in hand with the love for our Motherland and our fellow Filpino brothers. What he lacked is his respect of his countrymen, his patriotism. He indeed wanted the Philippines to be developed first world country. He had all his ideals for development. But he also wanted to transform the country to be 'western' -loosing every bit of identity.
Our country still needs good leaders like Marcos who will lead us to progress. We still need to be forced to follow rules and laws. If we continue allowingour Filipino brothers to get their way, or halfly follow the law, we will not grow as a nation. But we all need discipline. We all need he political will to implement, follow the laws -to ensure peace and order in our community.

 I cannot help it. Whenever I see old restored buildings, I cannot help but dream of restoring the old train station near the school (PNR)- which is now occupied by shanty. Its really sad. How I wish we can restore the old beauty and culture of Dagupan City in its former glory and beauty. The infrastructure of the old station is build in a very strong, very detailed American inspired architecture. Having seen the many many restored buildings from Macao, Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Australia and in the US, I cannot help but wonder why we havent done it in our community.

friends!!!!

if im the mayor, ill do this dagupan. bike lane, motorcycle lane, tricycle lane!!! :) hahaha. talk about obsessive compulsive.

future of Oakridge. :)

back to our Teachers' Day posts.

This is such a delayed post. We saw this sight at George Street when the City of Sydney welcomed the Olympians last August. This was really touching. I ended up crying. As a Filipino, it was really something to see a country support their athletes so much. They were saying the Australian Athletes did not do such a good job at the Olympics this year. But the whole country surprised them with a Heroes' Welcome. Imagine!
When did we ever give a Hero's Welcome? Oh! Manny Pacquiao! But it was by Solar Entertainment and was just for businessmen and friends. I have never seen us- Filipinos being so passionate and supportive with our fellow Filipinos who represented and fought hard outside the country for our country. Everytime our Athletes come home, they are welcomed by our Media for some 2 minute interview and thats it. Its so frustrating!
One thing for sure. I'll instill that love for our country. We'll produce great Filipinos who will stand up for fellow Filipinos and actually make our country proud. Oakridge will get there. With God's grace.

It's teachers' day today. We celebrated by bringing the teachers to Fortune Restaurant. It was really rewarding to see our Oakridge teachers loosen up and enjoy the afternoon. More than the food, the company made this lunch really worth while. Praying and hoping for a bigger team next year!! With God's Grace!

Just want to dedicated this day again to our Greatest Teacher- the Lord. :)

I'm so proud of these kids. They are all great performers. More than anything, they're great kids!

we're selling tickets of Phantom of the Opera for only PHP800. For more information, please dont hesitate to contact me.

I've been contemplating if I'll share this. I have tried my best to control and hide this insight. But I cannot help it anymore. I just have to speak my mind and share my convictions. Last night, while watching one of those Channel 11 (QTV)'s Shows on current events, they featured whistleblowers in the Philippines. They showed how people who have voiced out the corruption that happens in our government end up with nothing, with no protection at all. Its such a pity how these patriotic, dignified, passionate, concerned Filipinos have been ignored, neglected and even erased from the picture, suffering after standing up to what they believe is right for every Filipino to do. They featured a lot of Filipinos who stood up against all odds for justice. But our country was never a good place to fight for justice. I cannot help but weep for these people. Is JUSTICE really impossible to attain in this country? After all these things, is even worth it to stay in our own country, when we can receive better treatment, better services, better laws, better JUSTICE outside?
But I will never encourage brain drain. I still believe the best way to live is to serve your country. In my heart, I know that despite the better things outside the Philippines, its our job to make the Philippines overcome all these problems. I just hope the political leaders know what theyre doing. For crying out loud, rather than waste so much time on plagarism- we all know its wrong whether youre in the Philippines or outside....duh!!, our senators should be focusing on implementation of the laws, improving the laws, making laws that will protect the rights of every Filipino, give JUSTICE to all- philosophically speaking, give what is due to people.
And as for me, Im doing my share. Im forming the next generation of Filipino citizens and leaders who will never be corrupt, who will see that being a Filipino is being globally competitive, leaders who will change the landscape of Philippine politics and economics. I tell you - all my Mighty Oaks will soar high and change and contribute to CHANGE!!!

Marks of an Educated Man

Finesse , Elegance, Grace, Eloquence and Dignity

Truly these are marks of Mighty Oaks.

From the very start, Oakridge has been consecrated to the Lord. None of Oakridge's challenges and triumphs have been about me or even the team. It has always been about the Lord's Grace. And today, thats what the Lord has shown me. "Relax...I am in control". My anxiety everyday have always crippled me. Ive always been worried about the kids, their future, their academic status, their wellbeing, their health, their families and their lives. Ive always prayed for the kids. But it showed me more and more that the Lord is in control. 

This time, I consecrate Oakridge once again to the Lord. I know we are not perfect. Oakridge is not perfect. But the Lord is the center and the meaning of Oakridge. He is in control. Can things even get more perfect? 

Praise God! Have a blessed Thursday!!

Just remembered one of Benigno Aquino Sr.'s speech on Marcos when he said Marcos was so jealous of him because he has all the time to read books by Great Thinkers and Authors. Imagine a great person like Marcos craving for the written word. It simply shows how important reading is to us- as educated and cultured people.
I go back to my point on doing whats best and whats right for my Oakridge kids. I have seen a non-readers read and actually love books now. Its really amazing on how hooked our students have become on reading. And if theres one thing I can impart to them it would be the love for reading. Because I know they will understand and see the bigger world just by reading great books by great thinkers. They themselves will be the next Ninoy, next Marcos, next Thomas Edisor, next Socrates for as long as they continue to fuel their love for reading. I just hope Parents appreciate this.
No matter how happy I am seeing the children read, I am still faced in the dilemma that Parents never appreciate what we are actually doing for the kids.

Notable Thoughts on Assessment

What is Assessment?

We use the general term assessment to refer to all those activities undertaken by teachers -- and by their students in assessing themselves -- that provide information to be used as feedback to modify teaching and learning activities. Such assessment becomes formative assessment when the evidence is actually used to adapt the teaching to meet student needs.

Black, P. & Wiliam, D. 1998. Inside the Black Box: Raising standards through classroom assessment, King’s College, London

What should be assessed?

To begin at the beginning, the choice of tasks for classroom work and homework is important. Tasks have to be justified in terms of the learning aims that they serve, and they can work well only if opportunities for pupils to communicate their evolving understanding are built into the planning. Discussion, observation of activities, and marking of written work can all be used to provide those opportunities, but it is then important to look at or listen carefully to the talk, the writing, and the actions through which pupils develop and display the state of their understanding. Thus we maintain that opportunities for pupils to express their understanding should be designed into any piece of teaching, for this will initiate the interaction through which formative assessment aids learning.

Black, P. & Wiliam, D. 1998. Inside the Black Box: Raising standards through classroom assessment, King’s College, London.

How can assessment improve learning?

The research indicates that improving learning through assessment depends on five, deceptively simple, key factors

• the provision of effective feedback to pupils;
• the active involvement of pupils in their own learning;
• adjusting teaching to take account of the results of assessment;
• a recognition of the profound influence assessment has on the motivation
  and self-esteem of pupils, both of which are crucial influences on learning;
• the need for pupils to be able to assess themselves and understand how to
  improve.

Black, P. & Wiliam, D. 1999. Assessment for Learning: Beyond the Black Box, Assessment Reform Group, University of Cambridge, School of Education

Beliefs about learning affect assessment

Methods of assessment are determined by our beliefs about learning. According to early theories of learning, complex higher-order skills had to be acquired bit-by-bit by breaking learning down into a series of prerequisite skill, a building-blocks-of-knowledge approach. It was assumed incorrectly that after basic skills had been learned by rote, they could be assembled into complex understandings and insight. However, evidence from contemporary cognitive psychology indicates that all learning requires that the learner think and actively construct evolving mental models.

Dietel, R.J., Herman, J.L., Knuth, R.A. 1991. What Does Research Say About Assessment? North Central Regional Education Laboratory, Oak Brook

How can the concept of quality assist in learning?

In assessing the quality of a student’s work or performance, the teacher must possess a concept of quality appropriate to the task, and be able to judge the student’s work in relation to that concept. But although the students may accept a teacher’s judgment, without demur, they need more than summary grades if they are to develop expertise intelligently. The indispensable conditions for improvement are that the student comes to hold a concept of quality roughly similar to that held by the teacher, is able to monitor continuously the quality of what is being produced during the act of production itself, and has a repertoire of alternative moves or strategies from which to draw at any given point. In other words, students have to be able to judge the quality of what they are producing and be able to regulate what they are doing during the doing of it …

Stated explicitly, therefore, the learner has to (a) possess a concept of the standard (or goal/reference level) being aimed for, (b) compare the actual (or current) level of performance with the standard, and (c) engage in appropriate action which leads to some closure of the gap.

Formative assessment includes both feedback and self-monitoring. The goal of many instructional systems is to facilitate the transition from feedback to self-monitoring.

Sadler, R. 1989. Formative Assessment in the Design of Instructional Systems. Instructional Science. Vol. 18, pp119-144.

Why is self-assessment essential?

Self-assessment is essential for progress as a learner: for understanding of selves as learners, for an increasingly complex understanding of tasks and learning goals, and for strategic knowledge of how to go about improving.

Sadler, D. R. 1993. cited in Brookhart, S. M. 2001. Successful Students’ Formative and Summative Uses of Assessment Information. Assessment in Education. Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 153-169.

How does assessment help to make an effective school?

Assessment for learning can contribute to the development of effective schools. If assessments of learning provide evidence of achievement for public reporting, then assessments for learning serve to help students learn more. The crucial distinction is between assessment to determine the status of learning and assessment to promote greater learning.

Stiggins, R. J. 2002. Assessment Crisis: The Absence of Assessment FOR Learning, in Phi Delta Kappan Vol.83, No.10 pp758-765.

What is the effect of assessment for learning?

In short, the effect of assessment for learning, as it plays out in the classroom, is that students keep learning and remain confident that they can continue to learn at productive levels if they keep trying to learn. In other words, students don't give up in frustration or hopelessness.

Stiggins, R. J. 2002. Assessment Crisis: The Absence of Assessment FOR Learning, in Phi Delta Kappan Vol.83, No.10 pp758-765.

What is meaningful learning?

From today's cognitive perspective, meaningful learning is reflective, constructive, and self-regulated. People are seen not as mere recorders of factual information but as creators of their own unique knowledge structures. To know something is not just to have received information but to have interpreted it and related it to other knowledge one already has. In addition, we now recognize the importance of knowing not just how to perform, but also when to perform and how to adapt that performance to new situations. Thus, the presence or absence of discrete bits of information-which is typically the focus of traditional multiple-choice tests-is not of primary importance in the assessment of meaningful learning. Rather, what is important is how and whether students organize, structure, and use that information in context to solve complex problems

Dietel, R.J., Herman, J.L., Knuth, R.A. 1991. What Does Research Say About Assessment? North Central Regional Education Laboratory, Oak Brook

What do the best teachers do?

The best teachers constantly monitor what is happening to students as they set about learning and investigate when things do not proceed as planned or expected. They also enquire their own practice so they might get better at ensuring that their students learn successfully.

Demos 2004. About learning, Report of the Learning Working Group, Demos, London www.demos.co.uk

What gains has formative assessment made?

Formative assessment - the frequent assessments of student progress to identify learning needs and shape teaching - has become a prominent issue in education reform. The achievement gains associated with formative assessment have been described as "among the largest ever reported for educational interventions". While many teachers incorporate aspects of formative assessment into their teaching, it is much less common to find formative assessment practised systematically

OECD. 2005. Formative Assessment: Improving Learning in Secondary Classrooms, http://www.oecd.org/LongAbstract/0,2546,en_2649_33723_34340421_1_1_1_1,00.html

The growth of self-evaluation at student and school level

The growing importance of self-evaluation at the institutional level has also resulted in attention for student self-assessment. The main idea behind school evaluation and student self-assessment is that it is more important to focus on development than to compare your school or yourself with other schools or students. The process of student self-assessment and school- evaluation is as important as the outcomes are, because they will inform further development.

Voogt, J. & Kasurinen, H. 2005. Finland: Emphasising development instead of competition and comparison. In Formative Assessment: Improving Learning in Secondary Classrooms, OECD/CERI.

What are the elements of formative assessment?

Elements of formative assessment:

The key elements that have emerged form the case studies and related research are:

1. Establishment of a classroom culture that encourages interaction and the use of assessment tools

2. Establishment of learning goals, and tracking of individual student progress towards those goals

3. Use of varied instruction methods to meet diverse student needs

4. Use of varied approaches to assessing student understanding

5. Feedback on student performance and adaptation of instruction to meet identified needs

6. Active involvement of students in the learning process

OECD. 2005. Formative Assessment: Improving Learning in Secondary Classrooms, OECD publishing

Assessment analogy

When the cook tastes the soup, that’s formative; when the guests taste the soup, that’s summative.

Stake, R. cited in Earl, L. 2004. Assessment As Learning: Using classroom achievement to Maximize Student Learning. Experts in Assessment. Corwin Press Inc. Thousand Oaks, California.

How can new approaches to formative assessment be developed?

For teachers to be able to develop new approaches to formative assessment and relate them to different theories of learning, they must be able to investigate and reflect upon their own classroom practices – particularly the way they question and give feedback to students.

Torrance, H. & Pryor, J. 2001. Developing Formative Assessment in the Classroom: using action research to explore and modify theory. British Educational Research Journal. Vol.27, No.5, pp615-631.

How can diagnostic information inform teaching?

There is a diagnostic aspect to all formative assessment, and diagnostic information can inform both students’ studying and teachers’ teaching. The key is having a concept of the goal or learning target, which originally is the teacher’s, but which ideally the student will internalise, eventually setting his or her own goals and monitoring progress toward them (Sadler, 1989; Gipp, 1994 cited in Brookhart 2001).

Brookhart, S. M. 2001. Successful Students’ Formative and Summative Uses of Assessment Information. Assessment in Education. Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 153-169.

What is wrong with assessment?

While assessment has the potential to improve learning for all students, historically it has acted as a barrier rather than a bridge to educational opportunity. Assessments have been used to label students and put them in dead end tracks. Traditional tests have been soundly criticized as biased and unfair to minority students. And, the assessment of language minority students has been particularly problematic

Dietel, R.J., Herman, J.L., Knuth, R.A. 1991. What Does Research Say About Assessment? North Central Regional Education Laboratory, Oak Brook.

What effect does classroom assessment have?

In reality it is through classroom assessment that attitudes, skills, knowledge and thinking are fostered, nurtured and accelerated – or stifled.

Hynes (1991) cited in Earl, L. 2004. Assessment As Learning: Using classroom achievement to Maximize Student Learning. Experts in Assessment. Corwin Press Inc. Thousand Oaks, California.

The link between formative and summative assessment

Theory about classroom assessment and formative assessment may need to include some references to summative assessment, and vice versa, in order to describe more adequately the cyclical process successful students apparently construct for themselves.

Sebatane (1998) cited in Brookhart, S. M. 2001. Successful Students’ Formative and Summative Uses of Assessment Information. Assessment in Education. Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 153-169.

How do students move forward with their learning?

Over time, students move forward in their learning when they can use personal knowledge to construct meaning, have skills of self-monitoring to realize that they don’t understand something, and have ways of deciding what to do next.

Earl, Lorna. (2003). Assessment As Learning: Using classroom assessment to maximize student learning. Experts in assessment series, Corwin Press Inc., Thousand Oaks, California.

performances

Oakridge has always been all about the content, the meaning and the essence of things. We never have focused on outward things like performances that are unnecessary. We believe that whats important in each and every event is how the students did their part, shared their talents and learned from the activity. It has never been about how well they have practiced or how perfect their performance is.

When faced with the dilemma of being compared to other schools and their activities, I cannot help but look back at Oakridge, look at our principles and set whats best for the children. I believe in the importance of out of classroom activities in our students. Nevertheless, I do want to avoid unnecessary costs to parents and judgemental attitude towards activities and programs. Ive always wanted to value students for who they are and not what they can do on stage.

So, I go back to "Is it really necessary to have a big event when the importance is placed on student performance and learning?" 

The death of a great Filpino indeed can really shake our nation. It really made me feel how important it is to prepare the next generation of Filipinos to be great citizens. I have always been very idealistic and passionate when it comes to the education of our next generation. I wouldn't really devote 100% of my time to research, development and teacher and learns success if I haven't seen the role education in Nation building. Everyday, we all work hard to prepare and equip the students with the necessary knowledge and attitudes to be a great citizen. I know it's saving the world and making the world a better place to live in through education.
I still believe hat by educating and teaching the next generation of Filipinos to be great thinkers - to think critically, to make good decision, to live everyday for the good of others - putting others above oneself, we can have a first world Philippines ten, twenty years from now.
We are preparing everyday heroes in the classroom teaching them what's right and what's best.its about time we train our children for the future, not for the world before us - the past. CNN posts the future generation of movers and shakers of the world entail great decision making and great thinking skills. And that's basically what we are doing everyday at school. That's what you call Oakridge education.

Just can get over it. Everything I've been working hard on is never enough. Like I've been working hard on research based approach in teaching and learning, especially in early childhood education. But when someone ask me why we don't teach he same way they teach 50 years a, it becomes an instant attack to my philosophy and belief. I'm just so tired and sick of people ranting and complaining about life, when in fact life has changed. And we need to prepare our children for the future and for future success. I have nothing against the traditinals. I myself consider myself traditional. But I'm also logical and adaptive to change.
Oakridge curriculum is designed to get you into Ateneo, La Salle, UP, UCLA. Guess what???!!, handwriting will not get you there. When you ask me why we don't practice cursive writing at school, lll tel you that I'd rather spend time teaching my children reading, reading comprehension, understanding for meaning and analysis. I don't wanna waste time.