Graduate School

Improper disposal of toxic metals such as mercury (Hg) and lead (Pb) from transport and industrial activities can cause harmful environmental and biological effects. Hg contamination can damage the organ-systems. Meanwhile, Pb causes behavioral and learning problems, seizures and death. In Agusan Marsh, leaded gasoline is used by residents. In nearby areas, mining is present. Surveying and monitoring of toxic metal accumulation levels are to be taken seriously to ensure protection of wildlife in this ecologically significant wetland. For monitoring toxic metal accumulation, Kambu-ay (Pila Ampullacea) shells were collected in Masagansang Creek, a part of Agusan Marsh where livelihood activities occur. The shells were pounded and then subjected to Direct-Air-Acetylene Flame AAS and Cold Vapor AAS to determine the inherited levels of Pb and Hg, respectively. The shells were further tested for accumulation and elimination of these heavy metals under 50 mg/L-setup laboratory condition to determine if biosorption was still possible. Result showed that Kambu-ay shell contained 0.22 mg/L of Hg and 220mg/L of Pb. Further examination revealed that the shells were able to remove an average of 49.43 mg/L of Pb and 43.88 mg/L of Hg in laboratory setup. The project's contribution is twofold. First, Kambu-ay shell was proven to remove heavy metals. Second, the strong accumulation of contaminants by the shell is well suited for local monitoring programs. Caution should be taken if the meat of the shell is eaten. Continuous bioaccumulation of heavy metals in the food chain will threat Agusan Marsh's biodiversity. Thus, monitoring is necessary.

Work related well-being and workplace happiness of employees are crucial factors in an organization's performance and success (Page and Vella-Brodrick 2009). However, due to stressful circumstances brought by the changing educational system and working condition, work-life balance of the school personnel is affected (Papellero, 2020). In this study, the school implemented a stress management program dubbed as Project LAGSIK which means Life-Skills and Leisure Activities for Good Management of Stress and Ineffectiveness amidst Kovid-19 Pandemic". The program has been implemented for 7 months with its regular weekly schedule of Dance Exercise and monthly sport activities while cooking activity schedule was always hindered by the minimum health protocol. To evaluate the progress of the program, an online 12-item survey questionnaire was answered by 51 male and 114 females were randomly selected to determine their well-being and work engagement while engaging the school intervention program. Results revealed that Project LAGSIK affects positively to both male and female teaching and non-teaching personnel of Agusan del Sur National High School. It is therefore recommended to strengthen the treatment by reconsidering the other planned activities that are not implemented due to minimum health protocol against pandemic and considering the activities further suggested by the school personnel.

No pandemic could stop the world from learning. In the Philippines, the creative design of the Department of Education through its distance learning delivery as the learning continuity plan answers the need to educate the learners amidst pandemic. In accordance to Memorandum DM-CI-2020-00162-Appendix G, the local government unit is held responsible for their constituents and to serve the community residents in their own locality. Meanwhile, Agusan del Sur National High School is successful in tapping the Local Government Unit of San Francisco, Agusan del Sur and utilizing their resources with the approval of the Municipal Mayor. This study presents the proof of implementation of the 7-month course of action of the printed module distribution and retrieval at the 10 barangay distribution centers within San Francisco (SF) municipality proper, 1 school pickup for Barangays outside SF municipality and 1 distribution center as far as Campbagang, Surigao del Sur. These centers were manned by two (2) designated focal persons and by one or two teachers per grade level who facilitated the implementation process. This was started by a series of information drive at the barangay level after signing a MOA in partnership with LGU-SF. Every other Friday of the month, the Barangay Distribution and Retrieval of Printed Modules (BDRPM) were carried out except at the school pick up where every grade level has their own schedule. It has been observed that teachers are doing their responsibilities in coordinating the barangay council and helping each other to serve the purpose. Giving favor to the parents are among of its advantages to include easy accessibility of the instructional material, less expense, and less time exposure. This partnership was commended being the best practice of the school and was applauded during School Based Management (SBM) evaluation. It is then recommended to continue the practice and plan of action in motivating the Barangay officials as co-learning facilitators in response to modular printed learners in difficult circumstances.

Research is a 21 st century skill to develop. The learning competencies must be well taught as the basic step prior to research paper writing. However, teacher-delivered factual material thru rote memorization is often tedious and boring resulting to low retention of concepts and low MPS. In this pre-experimental research, gamification was used as instructional strategy to motivate the students and to increase their academic performance. One hundred thirty two (132) students from 3 intact classes of General Academic Strand (GAS) and 97 students from 2 intact classes of Technical Vocational and Livelihood (TVL) were used as the subject of the games while convenience sampling was used to select the students to give feedbacks about the strategy. Pretest-posttests questions were validated by three research experts while perception questionnaire was adopted from Alfabeto (2010) to gather the students' feedback about the strategy. Pretest was administered at the onset of 2 nd grading period and 3 weeks after, the posttest was administered. Results revealed that pretest MPS of both GAS and TVL did not meet expectations with 41.54% and 38.54% respectively while after the treatment, the posttest MPS revealed outstanding with 90.69% for GAS and very satisfactory for TVL with MPS of 85.45%. T-test revealed that there were significant increase in the MPS of both GAS and TVL with a p-value of 0.00. Meanwhile, GAS and TVL students found gamification as very much appealing and acceptable that made the lesson easy to understand; and playful activities were very much interesting resulting to active participation. TVL students found it as very much meaningful and relevant to their real life while GAS found it much relevant and provides meaningful learning. The project's implication is of twofold: first; conduct seminar workshop to develop research modules incorporating games as instructional strategy. Second; incorporate games in teaching research learning competencies.

Emerging facts have been revealed that the pandemic negatively affect people's lives due to the newness of the nature of job and its processes. In this study, occupational and technological stress level of teachers are assessed to better understand them and respond their sentiments and hopes based on their needs as they face the force remote education system. Out of 270 teachers of Agusan del Sur National High School, 159 were randomly chosen as the respondents to the google-form administered survey questionnaire. Results revealed that majority of the teachers have work-life imbalance, are worn out physically, mentally and emotionally and having a hard time of relaxation that lead them the feeling of irritability and frequent headaches due to the workload and nature of job and responsibilities. The teachers' overall weighted mean (WM) on occupational stress level is average (WM=3.16) which means that teachers are moderately stress in handling the new normal distance teaching-learning process while the overall weighted mean on technological stress level is high (WA= 3.46). Furthermore, there is a strong significant relationship between occupational and technostress levels which tells that both factors moderately associate from each other. Moreover, teachers aired their requests on upgrading of internet connection, the reinforcement through seminars on TPCK in the normal, the improvement of printed modules process flow, having destressing activities and relaxation, and the love and care of the school towards them. It is then recommended that the school would make a strategic plan in response to the teachers' suggested intervention programs.

Denila, Richard V.

“Enhancing the Competence of Senior High School Biology Teachers using Review Visualize Design (RVD) Approach,” Unpublished doctorate dissertation, Bukidnon State University, Malaybalay City, April 2018.

This study aimed to design and develop learning modules for Senior High School Biology teachers enhancing their competence using and RVD approach. It was conducted at Norala Cluster of Secondary Schools, Division of South Cotabato during the school year 2017-2018. The participants were the 27 Senior High School Biology teachers. Specifically, it aimed to conduct a needs assessment to Biology teachers, design and develop learning modules in Biology, implement the developed learning modules and evaluate the effectiveness of the learning modules.
The study utilized the research and development (R & D) research design. The ID Model of Seels and Glassgow (1994) was adopted following the five phases, namely: Analysis, Design, Develop, Implement and Evaluate.  Kirkpatrick Model (1997) was used to evaluate the learning modules utilizing the RVD approach, the effectiveness of the modules and the conduct of the training. Interview and focus group discussion was also conducted to validate data from the questionnaire.
Information and data gathered from the needs assessment and evaluation of the learning modules from a panel of experts and the participants was collected and analyzed using mean and standard deviation. Corrections and suggestions from the experts were followed during the revision that helped improve the learning modules into its final form.
Findings show that through needs analysis, Biology teachers have difficulty in developing instructional materials to aid them in teaching the subject. Thus, five topics were identified and served as the bases for designing and developing the learning modules with innovative feature of Review Visualize Design (RVD) Approach. The topics identified are: Incomplete Dominance And Co-Dominance; Evolution By Natural Selection, How Populations Evolve?; Mechanisms That Produce Change In Populations, From Generation To Generation; How DNA Codes Build A Specific Protein; and lastly,  Structures of a Cell.
The five learning modules were evaluated by the experts and the participants, they strongly agreed with its clarity, content accuracy and appropriateness as well as for its acceptability, applicability, and usefulness. The overall evaluation of the participants in the conduct of the training or INSET in the delivery of the topics by the resource speakers, preparation of training materials, venue, food, and schedule was very satisfactory. Further, the participants’ behavior towards what they learn, felt and experienced/reaction during the INSET was very satisfactory.

RATIONALE This activity can help the learners to picture out the concepts on how organisms evolve considering their genes as dominant and recessive and its effect on the reproduction of their offspring in order to survive and perpetuate their life. The computer simulated scenarios will be presented using the PhET software so that students can analyze and create a breed of organisms to be competitive in terms of their survival. They can also construct or fabricate a new batch of mutated organism that best suit a kind of environment to that they can prevail even in the presence of some predators in the wild ready to hunt them.

RATIONALE This lesson is designed to familiarize students with cell structures (organelles) and their functions. Students will locate and identify animal and plant cell structures. The student demonstrates an understanding of the structure, function, behavior, development, life cycles, and diversity of living organisms by describing the structure-function relationship.

Denila, Richard V.

“The Relationship of Motivation to Learn and Attitude Towards Chemistry on the Academic  Achievement of High School Chemistry Students,”  Unpublished master’s thesis, Bukidnon State University (Malaybalay City), March 2010.

This study investigated the relationship of high school chemistry students’ motivation to learn and attitude towards chemistry with their chemistry academic achievement.  This study was conducted at Norala National High School, Division of South Cotabato, for the school year 2009-2010.
The study made use of the correlation method with the questionnaires in Likert scale to gather the data.  The instruments used were: Motivation questionnaire to learn (as adopted and modified by Ortiz, 1997) for determining the students’ motivation to learn chemistry; the Attitude Towards Science Scale (ATSS) by Wilkinson, 1979, as adopted by Alava, 2004 for determining the students’ attitude towards chemistry; and the Achievement Test in Chemistry for ascertaining the academic achievement of the third year chemistry students.  The statistical tools used in the study were frequency count, percentage, the mean, standard deviation, and Pearson product-moment correlation (r) at 0.05 confidence level. 
Findings showed that the third year students are motivated in achievement, in affiliation, in competence, and in maintenance to learn chemistry. Study show that they have the desire to learn the concepts and skills in chemistry. Collectively, the third year high school  students’  have  favorable  attitude  towards  chemistry.    The academic performance level of the of the third year students in high school chemistry is satisfactory. This indicates that the students are moderately competent in the knowledge and skills in chemistry. There is a statistically significant relationship between the third year students’ motivation to learn chemistry and their attitude towards chemistry. A statistically significant relationship exists between the third year students’ motivation to learn chemistry and their academic achievement in chemistry.  Statistically there is a significant relationship between the third year students’ attitude towards chemistry and their academic achievement in chemistry.

Denila, Richard V.
This study investigated the relationship of high school chemistry students’ motivation to learn and attitude towards chemistry with their chemistry academic achievement.  This study was conducted at Norala National High School, Division of South Cotabato, for the school year 2009-2010.
The study made use of the correlation method with the questionnaires in Likert scale to gather the data.  The instruments used were: Motivation questionnaire to learn (as adopted and modified by Ortiz, 1997) for determining the students’ motivation to learn chemistry; the Attitude Towards Science Scale (ATSS) by Wilkinson, 1979, as adopted by Alava, 2004 for determining the students’ attitude towards chemistry; and the Achievement Test in Chemistry for ascertaining the academic achievement of the third year chemistry students.  The statistical tools used in the study were frequency count, percentage, the mean, standard deviation, and Pearson product-moment correlation (r) at 0.05 confidence level. 
Findings showed that the third year students are motivated in achievement, in affiliation, in competence, and in maintenance to learn chemistry. Study show that they have the desire to learn the concepts and skills in chemistry. Collectively, the third year high school  students’  have  favorable  attitude  towards  chemistry.    The academic performance level of the of the third year students in high school chemistry is satisfactory. This indicates that the students are moderately competent in the knowledge and skills in chemistry. There is a statistically significant relationship between the third year students’ motivation to learn chemistry and their attitude towards chemistry. A statistically significant relationship exists between the third year students’ motivation to learn chemistry and their academic achievement in chemistry.  Statistically there is a significant relationship between the third year students’ attitude towards chemistry and their academic achievement in chemistry.