SELECTION and ORGANIZATION of

CONTENT
• “Thereare dull teachers, dull
textbooks, dull films, but no dull
subjects”
 Introduction
What knowledge is truly essential and
enduring? What is worth teaching and
learning?
This means that we are not entirely free in
the selection of our content. They are
“given” But how they are organized and
presented in the classroom, ultimately
depends on you.
Below are some principles to guide you.
Guiding Principles in the selection and organization of content

1. One guiding principle related to subject matter

content is to observe the ff. Qualities in the
selection and organization of content:
• A) VALIDITY – means teaching the content in
order to realize the goals and objectives of the
course as laid down in the basic education
corriculum.
• B) SIGNIFICANCE – What we teach should
respond to the needs and interests of the
learners, hence meaningful and significant
• C) BALANCE – Content includes not only
facts but also concepts and values. The
use of the three-level approach ensures a
balance of cognitive, psychomotor, and
and affective lesson content.
– it is something that challenges
the student. To observe the
principle of balance, no topic must
be extensively discussed at the
expense of other topics.
• D) SELF-SUFFICIENCY – Content fully
covers the essentials. Learning content is
not “mile-wide-inch-deep” . The
essentials are sufficiently covered and
are treated in depth. This is a case of
“less is more”.
• E) INTEREST – teacher considers the
interest of the learners, their
developmental stages and cultural and
ethnic background.
• F) UTILITY – it is not meant only to be
memorized for test and grade purposes.
What is learned has a function even after
examinations are over.
• G) FEASIBILITY – The content is feasible
in the sense that the essential content
can be covered in the amount of time
available for instruction.
2. At the base of the structure of cognitive
subject matter content is facts. We can’t
do away with facts but be sure to go
beyond facts by constructing an
inscreasingly richer and more
sophisticated knowledge base and by
working out a process of conceptual
understanding.
• A) Provibing opportunities for
experimentation – after teaching your
students how to cook a recipe following the
procedures laid down in a cookbook, allow
them to experiment with mix of ingredients.
• B) Presenting the ideas of others – while it is
beneficial for you to encourage your students
to discover principles for themselves, it will
not jeopardize your students if you present
the ideas of others who worked hard over
the years to explain phenomena.
• C) Emphasizing conceptual
understanding – if we emphasize
conceptual understanding, the emphasis
goes beyond facts. We integrate and
correlate facts, concepts and values in a
meaningful manner. The many facts
become integrated into a less number of
concepts, yet more meaningful and
consequently easier to recall.
Here are some specific strategies that can
help you develop conceptual
understanding in your students:
Organize units around a few core ideas
and themes.
Explore each topic in depths.
Explain how new ideas relate to
students’ own experiences and to things
they have previously learned.
Show students- through the things we
say, the assignment we give, and the
criteria we use to evaluate learning- that
conceptual understanding of subject
matter is far more important than
knowledge of isolated facts.
Ask students to teach to others what
they have learned.
3) Subject matter content is an integration
of cognitive, skill, and affective elements.
When our point of emphasis is the
cognitive aspect, it does not mean that we
exclude skills. In the first place, our
teaching of facts, concepts, principles,
theories and laws necessitate the skill of
seeing the relationships among these in
order to see meaning.
a) The structure of of subject matter
content
Our subject matter content includes
cognitive, skill and affective components.
1. Cognitive
a. Facts are basic unit of cognitive subject
matter content. It is, therefore,
necessary that the facts that we begin
with are updated and accurate.
b. Concept is a categorization of events, places,
people, ideas.
c. Principle is the relationship (s) between and
among facts concepts.
d. Hypotheses are educated guesses about
relationships (principles).
e. Theories refer to set of facts,concepts and
principles that describe possible underlying
unobservable mechanisms that regulate
human learning, development , and behavior.
• Learners seen to acquire general belief
systym – PERSONAL THEORIES – these
personal belief may not necessarily be
accurate beliefs.
f. Laws are firmly established, thoroughly
tested principle or theory.
2) SKILLS
a. Manipulative skills – there are courses that
are dominantly skill-oriented like computer,
home economics and technology, physical
education, music and the like.
What are other manipulative skills that you
can think of?

The learning of these manipulative skills

begin with naive manipulation and ends up in
expert and precise manipulation.
b. Thinking skills – these refer to the skills
beyond recall and comprehension
• Divergent thinking. This includes fluent
thinking, flexible thinking, original thinking
and elaborate thinking.
 Fluent thinking is characterized by the
generation of lots of ideas.

 Flexible thinking is characterized by a variety

of thoughts in the kind of ideas generated.
Original thinking is thinking that differs
from what’s gone before. Thought
production is away from the obvious and
is different from the norm.
Elaborative thingking embellishes on
provious ideas or plans.
• Convergent thinking – it is narrowing
down from many possible thoughts to
end up on a single best thought or
answer to a problem.
Problem solving - is made easier when
the problem is weel-defined.
Example :
* break large problems into well-defined
ones
 * distinguish information needed
*identify techniques to find needed
information
ALGORITHM – means following specific,
step-by-step instructions.
HEURISTICS – general problem-solving
strategy, for a solution.
• For teaching heuristics:
• - give students practice in defining ill-defined
problems.
• -teach heuristics that students can use where
no algorithms apply.
• Metaphoric thinking – this type of thinking
uses analogic thinking, a figure of speech
where a word is used in manner different from
its ordinary designation to suggest or imply a
parallelism or similar.
• Critical thinking – it involves evaluation
information or arguments in terms of their
accuracy and worth.
• 1. verbal reasoning – an example is evaluating
the presuasive techniques found in oral or
written language.
• 2. Argument analysis – you are engaged in
this critical thinking process when you
discriminate abetween reasons that do and do
not support a particular conclusion.
• 3. Hypothesis testing – it is evaluating
the value of data and reseach results in
terms of the methods used to obtain
them and their potential relevance to
particular conclusions.
• 4. Decision making – we are engaged in
critical thinking when we weigh the pros
and cons of each proposed alternative
approach.
• Creative thinking – this type of thinking
involves “producing something that is both
original and worthwile.
• What creative thinking behaviors should be
developed?
• Awareness – the ability to notice the
attributes of things in the environment so as
to build a knowledge base that is the
beginning of all other forms of creative
thinking.
• Curiosity - the ability and inclination to
wonder about things and mentally
explore the new, novel, unique ideas.
• Imagination – the ability to speculate
about things that are not necessary
based on reality.
• Fluency – the ability to produce a large
quantity of ideas.
• Flexibility – the ability to look at things
from several different perspectives or
view points.
• Originality – the ability to produce new,
novel, unique ideas.
• Elaboration – the ability to add on to an
idea; to give details; build groups of
related ideas or expand on ideas.
• Perseverance – the ability to keep trying
to find an answer; to see through
completion.
• 3) attitude and values
• - in the three-level approach to
teaching, values are at apex of the
triangle. It is because it is in the teaching
of values that the teaching of facts, skills,
and concepts become connected to the
life of the students, thus acquiring
meaning.
• Values have: cognitive dimension ,
affective dimension, behavioral
dimension.
• how can we teach values ?
• - by deutero-learning – your student
learns by being exposed to the situation,
by acquainting himself with a setting, by
following models, pursuing
inspirationsand copying behavior.
• YOUR CRITICAL ROLE AS MODELS IN
AND OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM
CANNOT BE OVEREMPHASIZED.
• > by positively reinforcing good behavior
• > by teaching the cognitive component
of values in the classroom