STAR Patrol promises a shining future after debriefing conference

In keeping with the democratic processes of improving the conduct of Project School-based Technical Assistance for Raters (STAR), the division spearheaded a debriefing conference to harvest relevant insights from the field. It happened on 23 July 2019 at the SDO Conference Hall with 85 participants comprising of master teachers, head teachers, school heads, education program supervisors and specialists, along with the top education officials of the division.

The participants were asked to form triads composing of members with different designation or school assignment. They focused on the questions what went well, what went wrong, and how things can be improved.

After the small group discussion, three triads merged for the next phase. During the big group discussion, members had to summarize the strong points raised, the common improvement areas, and their collective suggestions and recommendations that could help improve any of the procedures across the stages of STAR Patrol.

During the plenary session, representatives from the participants gave their insights that served as the synthesis. Ms. Maria Carlyn C. Biluan of San Juan National High School spoke on behalf of all the master teachers present, Dr. Lucila G. Artuyo and Ms. Hernanda R. Santos gave their messages as school heads for district I and II respectively, while Dr. Emma A. Sendiong represented the division supervisors.

Meanwhile, the second part of the program featured a simulation of the different stages of STAR Patrol started off with the pre-observation conference, actual classroom observation, analyses and strategies (for the deliberation part), post-observation conference, and technical assistance. Pedro Cruz ES principal Dr. Juphet A. Capuyan and his two master teachers, Ms. Charina O. Parangat and Ms. Ellen C. Alunday, led the simulation as raters with Ms. Analine F. de Guzman as the demonstration teacher for a Math class in Grade One, and Ms. Helen S. Acedo as the process observer. The team highlighted the common practices in school during classroom observations with the intention to integrate the best practices across the various stages of STAR Patrol.

In a subsequent task, Dr. Bradley Goldie Loo, the Science supervisor, deepened the processing of the simulation and related it with a research work that would look into the impact of the STAR Patrol in the perceived effectiveness of instructional leadership in DepEd San Juan.

The activity culminated on the official launch ceremonies of the project followed by a solidarity song and pledge of commitment by the participants. OIC-Schools Division Superintendent Alejandro G. Ibañez challenged everyone to continue with the STAR Patrol as a means to render quality technical assistance to the raters and ultimately to classroom teachers in order to facilitate better learning outcomes.