Multigrade Team Teaching: How a Small Progressive Private School in a Non-Rural Philippine Set-Up Deviated from Monograde Teaching to Implement Its Age-Appropriate Inclusive School Program

摘要

Multigrade Teaching, which is the method of teaching as one class students belonging to different age groups or grade levels, is not a new educational innovation nor a recent method presented by education specialists and has in fact been historically practiced far longer than Monograde Teaching. However, in the Philippines, Monograde Teaching is the predominant practice for formal school education and Multigrade Teaching is often perceived as a backwards, ineffective strategy and has been relegated as the instruction method of choice due to economic necessity in remote, far flung, and geographically-challenged areas. This ethnographic research aims to study how Multigrade Team Teaching was successfully used in an urban location by a small progressive inclusive private school, where at least 50% of the enrollees are medically diagnosed as children with special needs, and to examine and explore the practices and experiences of the educators and young learners involved. This study particularly seeks to answer the following questions regarding practicing Multigrade Teaching in a school for children with and without needs: 1.) What effective strategies do the teachers employ? 2.) What factors facilitate the transfer of knowledge from teacher to student and from student to fellow student? 3.) How are lessons planned? 4.) How do teachers deal with behaviors that disrupt learning? and 5.) How are assessments conducted?