Opportunities and Challenges of a Multigrade Teacher

Inputs for a Proposed Professional Development Action Plan

Abstract

Multigrade teaching is a situation in which one teacher is responsible for managing multiple grade levels of the same subject at the same time. This is a scenario in primary schools in the Philippines, where the number of grade-level students exceeds the number of teachers. In some cases, multigrade teachers may be responsible for two or three grade levels, teaching one subject and sometimes multiples. Hence, this interview type of research determined the perspectives of multi-grade teachers concerning the opportunities, challenges, and professional development they have in multi-grade teaching. Employing qualitative approach on research, the results of the study reveal that the respondents have lots of development needs that must be addressed to sustain quality education in multigrade classes. They can enhance this development needs due to hindrances in reaching their goals of uplifting it. It is recommended that the top management must conduct a survey – assessment tool to assess multigrade teachers’ development needs. This assessment will help them in planning more opportunities and upskilling for multigrade teachers. The multigrade teachers must have a collaboration to overcome their hindrances and promote professional community platform to sustain development goals. For the future researcher can use this study as basis for future improvement in multigrade education. They can conduct experimental research on the effectiveness or multigrade action plan on addressing multigrade teacher’s development needs and assess its reliability in minimizing hindrances.