When I entered teaching, the school already had an established Culinary Arts program that was inclined to being one of the exploratory Technology and Livelihood Education subjects. Its curriculum would allow students to learn basic skills and develop interests in the Culinary Arts, but its focus still remains for home use instead of a viable choice for a profitable career.
My goal as a teacher of the Culinary Arts subject was to transform the subject from just being a Cooking or Baking course into a real introductory course of the professional Culinary Arts program. To do this, the curriculum was transformed to include all the basic skills in increasing difficulty, and the content was packed with integrated subjects to increase learning. Unfortunately, the time allotted for the subject was not changed, and the increase in the information included in the program proved to be difficult.
As the new teacher, I sought to give my students a good foundation first and employed the theory of scaffolding. I would discuss the background of the dish, its cultural heritage, origins, and modern applications. Afterwards, I proceed to do a live demonstration where their other subjects such as science, math and history are integrated into the procedure here and there.
In order to save precious time, I would teach by quickly going through a script, almost as if memorized, just to get all the information out and hope for the best. I quickly learned that this technique, although efficient in time, is quite ineffective.
I have made a few changes to my technique, but I cannot yet confidently say that I have achieved the optimal level of learning. This module in constructivism has allowed me to think of a few new ways on how I can improve on this. Moving forward, I may opt to utilize the power of questioning more so that the answers will not just be fed to them, instead, the students will be actively participating in a problem-solving perspective and find the answers themselves. My role as a teacher is to facilitate their learning through demonstration, but to enrich their learning, the questions should be provoking enough to trigger memories which they can share in class and build upon.
In the spirit of making the class more relevant, I’ve also decided to relate the class to social issues and their personal lives as well. Recently, I’ve related the skill of cooking without using normal measuring tools to the “big one” scare. I told them how they could cook rice and other edible items without using traditional cookware, and I think they really appreciated this learning.It is my hope that I could allow my students to think critically through my subject as I teach them life skills. The preparation is much harder, and the process is difficult, but I think in the end, the results can be more promising that I could ever have imagined.
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