REGIONAL directors and field officials of the Department of Education will spearhead this year’s DepEd Teaches episodes to discuss their respective strategies in attaining excellence in distance learning.

Launched in December 2020, DepEd Teaches is an online program that features steps and initiatives that help educators overcome the challenges in providing education.

In the first five episodes, directors under the Curriculum and Instruction strand were featured.

In the program’s sixth episode on Thursday, OIC-Schools Division Superintendent of School Division Offices of Angeles City Ma. Irelyn Tamayo tackled “Designing Lessons to Achieve Learning Standards for Distance Learning Modalities.”

She shared that the Schools Division Office in Angeles City created Learning Activity Sheets anchored on instructional design and targeted the development of the six cognitive processes or dimensions (remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating). The LASs are also based on the MELCs and served as supplementary materials for the modules provided by central office and regional office.

“Our activities do not center [only] on remembering, understanding, and applying, but we take our learners to the higher-order thinking skills. In some of our activities, our learners are [free to] justify their decision or course of action and [allowed] to generate new ideas, products, or ways of thinking or viewing things, and these are evaluating and creating, respectively,” Tamayo said.

She emphasized the importance of teachers’ involvement in the instructional design process, which helps in their mastery of learning standards and the subject matter.

Tamayo said that SDO Angeles envisions creating remarkable learning experiences for their students, as well as preparing instructional materials that will result in the acquisition of knowledge, concepts, ideas, as well as the application of lifelong skills.

Meanwhile, the next two episodes will discuss topics on K to 12 Curriculum and Planning.

Navotas OIC-Schools Division Superintendent Alejandro Ibañez will present “Selecting teaching strategies and tasks relevant for learning delivery modalities” while Region IV-A CALABARZON Director Wilfredo Cabral will discuss “Preparing and utilizing learning materials appropriate to the learning modalities.”

Episodes 8 to 10 will center on “The Learner and his Learning Environment” with Regional Directors Gemma Ledesma (VI), Francis Cesar Bringas (CARAGA), and Gilbert Sadsad (V) as resource persons.

“The sharing from our Regional Directors, exemplary Superintendents, principals, fellow teachers, and even supervisors that will be featured in the forthcoming episodes will inspire you all to find ways of ensuring that learning happens even in very trying times,” Education Undersecretary for Curriculum and Instruction Diosdado San Antonio said.

“We look forward to more of you, fellow teachers, spreading the news that there’s a channel, there’s a platform where we can continue to interact and learn together so that the policy initiatives will be translated into effective practices to ensure that learning will continue and our learners will become ready to be competitive in this so-called 21st Century Industry 4.0 and new world,” he added.