Background (Needs, Context, and Learner Analysis)

The Learning Environment

The Simona Child Development Center is next to Sitio Simona Elementary School, but the two are separate. The center has a small room just enough to accommodate young students and teachers. The roof is adequate, ensuring the classroom stays cool and not directly exposed to sunlight. The room is equipped with 30 chairs for students, which are just enough for each session, along with 5 tables. The room has 5 electric fans to keep the space cool and enough lights for their learning. In front of the students, there is only a whiteboard and chalkboard, and there is a small television and speaker for their learning, and the teacher's tables are also in the front near the chalkboard and whiteboard. While the classroom space is compact, it is functional and sufficient for the students' needs in terms of physical environment, but even though the materials are complete, the cabinets or storybooks, toys, and other materials make the space look cramped, which limits the area for activities that require more movement. The space becomes too tight, making it unsuitable for kinesthetic games or activities that involve a lot of physical movement. The children's room has 4 windows and 2 comfort rooms inside, providing amenities. They have a washroom outside of their classroom, which is the place where learners can wash their hands before they eat their snacks during their break time. The room is surrounded by bookshelves and cabinets that store storybooks, additional learning materials, drawing materials, or worksheets. All of these resources were generously donated by MSWD and the Barangay San Isidro Office, and there are non-projected visual aids, design walls where alphabets and numbers are seen, and other pictures that can add to the learning process of the learners; in short, the supporting materials are good and ready to be used. So in terms of tools available, there are places for storybooks and bookshelves, there are many hanging charts for alphabets and numbers, toys, and other manipulative materials, as well as ready-to-use materials for arts and crafts such as clay, popsicle sticks, crayons, and bond papers.
However, the two challenges the room faces are, first is its proximity to the covered court, as it is connected to Sitio Simona Elementary School. This sometimes becomes a struggle during events held in the covered court, as the noise can be disruptive and affect the children's focus and learning environment. The second is the diverse materials or learning information that are posted on the wall, and the place for learning materials. The space appears crowded, and the excessive amount of information is no longer aligned with the children's learning needs, affecting their process of retention. This is connected with the theory of Cognitive Load by John Skeller that if the classroom environment is cluttered with too much information, such as charts, toys, and other materials, causing the room to be so crowded, it increases the extraneous loads. These are the unnecessary information or distractions that do not help learning and should be minimized. Hence, the more it increases, the extraneous load increases, and the more difficult it is for learners to retain important information. Simplifying the learning space and focusing on essential, engaging materials can reduce cognitive overload and improve retention while creating and developing multimodal instructional materials that align with the needs.



Simona Child Development Center Curriculum

The Simona Child Development Center (SCDC) was initially monitored by the Municipal Social Welfare and Development (MSWD) and funded by the Department of Social Welfare and Development. Before, the school was dependent on DSWD, but after completing the accreditation process, it became independent and is now under the Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) framework. Despite its independence, the school continues to receive support from the local government, MSWD, for feeding programs and addressing the nutritional needs of the children. In addition to DSWD, the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the Department of Education (DepEd) also extend their contribution and support for the children's learning needs and the provision of educational equipment at Simona Child Development Center.

While SCDC follows the lesson patterns and modules provided by the National Early Learning Curriculum (NELC) under ECCD,  preschool teachers have the flexibility to adapt and modify activities according to the most appropriate learning approaches for the children. This allows them to occasionally deviate from the prescribed patterns, as long as the essence of the curriculum remains intact. In short, they maintain the general structure while adjusting based on the children's needs and learning styles.

The pattern of the required lesson given by the ECCD Curriculum, which SCDC followed, can be found in Appendix M, 13. ECCD Required Lesson/Curriculum Guide   

The pictures above are the physical environment of Simona Child Development Center and the available materials. Despite all these being available but the problem for the teachers is in designing effective instructional materials and the strategy for effective pedagogy and maximizing it for the learners' needs. 

The Needs, Context, and Learner's Analysis

At Simona Child Development Center, the class sessions are divided into three groups. The first session consists of 23 students with classes held from 8:00 AM to 10:00 AM. The second session has 25 students, and their class runs from 10:00 AM to 12 PM. Lastly, the third session includes 27 students, with their class taking place from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM. This structure allows for a manageable number of students in each session, ensuring that learners receive focused attention during their classes. The learners' ages are from 3 to 5 years, which only focuses on the early level before they turn to kindergarten and basic education. Despite a full year of study, many preschool learners still engage in enhancing cognitive and fine motor skills. That means that it is still the struggle of the majority of the students; only a few of the students are independent or have a little guidance for their learning, and the rest are in need. 

This indicates that only a few learners are truly mastering these skills. In each session, only 5 to 7 students can say that their fine motor skills are good and are processing their cognition through memory retention and solving different problems. The learners exhibit different learning types because two learners are struggling with autism from the third session. In terms of socio-economic background, most of the learners are in the middle level of income, they have access to technology such as mobile phones or laptops, but lack in terms of access to multimedia resources or other educational or information, and effective instructional materials. This is because of the lack of guidance by their parents due to many reasons, such as work schedules and business priorities, and in 23 parents from the survey, the results majority showcased a lack of awareness about open access to educational materials, either digital or not. We can say they have a little information or they know about it, but the majority do not explore its use. In the class observation, the learners are more focused on visual, auditory, and kinesthetic, but need attention for their cognitive and motor skills. To understand not just the learner's need, context, and analysis, the results from the teachers and parents' survey can be found in Appendix P. Methodology, Findings and Analysis

Based on interviews with parents, many find it difficult to give proper attention to their children due to work, other commitments, lack of time, and the lack of knowledge or access to learning materials, or even how to properly use the materials for their child. As a result, the majority of the parents often rely on their child to the teachers for most of their educational needs. Many parents also mentioned that they cannot focus on their children's learning at home, which leads to early exposure to playing and using cell phones. Only 10% of parents are sure that they gave their best time for their children.  Because of this, the majority of the parents feel their best option is to either surrender or fully rely upon their child on teachers and supportive educational materials to help their children develop. 

In this special project, based on the interview from the teachers and observation, the learners from the first session are the most who need attention because the majority, or almost all the learners, still have difficulty in their learning process, so that is why these learners from the first session became the target learners of this project.


Observation and Analysis Results Based on the Interview with Preschool Teachers

Despite the availability of supportive learning materials from donations for preschool learners, as well as resources like television, chalkboard, whiteboard, and other tools, and the lessons provided by the ECCD Council, teachers have admitted a persistent gap in exploring strategies for creating instructional materials and multimedia resources because they are only dependent on the activity guide given by the ECCD. Even if it is given, they still cannot fix the gap. They are only relying on print-available materials such as storybooks, number charts, and playing materials that will add and use to their learning enhancement, but despite having these, the preschool teachers are still struggling with how to manage them or to create instructional materials and exploring the application of multimedia resources such as making an animated creative PowerPoint presentation. Meaning that the materials are available, but there is limited knowledge on how to use these two approaches, and in terms of open educational resources, they know about it, but they don't know how to explore or maximize their use.  Hence, creating instructional materials and utilizing multimedia resources are the two essential interventions for preschool learners' learning and will serve as teaching tools for effective teaching. 

Here, the teacher's role is crucial. They need to be equipped to create creative multimodal instructional materials because, according to Oke (2016) as quoted by Afoma & Omotuyole (2013 as cited in Muthanje, Khatete, & Riechi, 2020), "it provides rigorous, visual or both to the five senses during teaching and learning, so meaning it can stimulate and boost effective teaching and learning accomplishments and maximize the application of different multimedia materials including open educational resources (OERs)".  Both of these interventions will help the learners process their learning in the six-week lesson and instructional plan. Since the learners are in preschool, these interventions are suitable to be implemented through the play-driven activity that shifts from teacher-centered education to student-centered education, by which students can build constructive knowledge and skills. 

An initial assessment was conducted to understand the learners' entry skills, abilities, and competencies, as well as their socio-economic and cultural backgrounds. This assessment served as the foundation for designing developmentally appropriate instructional materials and strategies that cater to the needs of preschool learners. To evaluate the knowledge and skills, various methods were employed, including teacher and parent surveys, classroom observations, and pre-activity assessments. These assessments aimed to determine the learners' cognitive abilities, fine motor skills, and readiness for structured learning activities. Additionally, fine motor development varied, with some learners finding it challenging to hold a pencil, cut paper, or write effectively. These findings emphasized the need for multimodal instructional materials, a play-driven approach to strengthen cognitive and fine motor development. Beyond assessing academic skills, it was also essential to examine the children's socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds, as these factors significantly influence their learning experiences. Through interviews with parents and demographic surveys, it was found that many children had limited access to open-access materials due to a lack of awareness, maximizing the benefits for the educational purpose of multimedia resources and structured learning materials at home. Additionally, some parents had limited formal education, which posed challenges in providing academic support to their children. Language use at home also varied, with some families primarily speaking Filipino, while others introduced English at an early age, but they can learn in Filipino for the majority. This highlighted the need to develop bilingual instructional materials that support both language development and comprehension. The insights gathered from this assessment directly informed the development of the Play-Driven Approach and instructional materials. To address the learners' needs, multimodal learning tools such as flashcards, animated presentations, hands-on games, and manipulative materials were integrated into lessons. Activities were carefully designed to enhance fine motor skills, incorporating tasks like clay modeling, cutting, coloring, and sorting objects. Moreover, to make learning more engaging and accessible, the materials were structured in a way that supported both teacher-led instruction and independent exploration through play. By aligning instructional materials with the learners' abilities and backgrounds, the project ensured a learner-centered approach that promotes meaningful and effective learning experiences. Through this careful assessment and planning, the play-driven approach not only addressed cognitive and motor skill development but also created an inclusive and engaging learning environment for preschoolers. 

The information can be supported and found in Appendix K, here.

To widen the information about this project, feel free to read the Introduction to the Special Project