PurposeThis study aims to investigate the relationship between leadership and teacher professional learning considering two mediating variables – teacher trust and teacher agency.Design/methodology/approachThe study utilized structural equation modeling in analyzing the responses from 1,654 secondary public teachers from 43 schools in the Philippines.FindingsLeadership does not have a direct relationship with teacher professional learning. The established relationship of leadership and professional learning from literature exists through the mediation of teacher trust and teacher agency.Originality/valueThe results point out that school leaders must affect teacher trust and teacher agency to influence the engagement of teachers to professional learning. Contrary to what has been accepted in educational management that leaders can directly impact teachers, the findings of this study dictate that the full effects of leadership are coursed through mediating pathways.

The continued rise of technology in the educational system has brought about new teaching approaches such as blended learning. To fully utilize this approach, researchers have focused on studying the dynamics between various learning variables and its implementation. However, the intersection of context in the actual implementation of blended learning in the classroom remains to be a rich field for researchers. The present study explored the pedagogical support needed to implement blended learning. By examining the perspectives of five teachers and 60 secondary students through a questionnaire and semi-structured interview, emerging themes were identified through qualitative analysis. Results revealed that students look into the alignment between the face-to-face and online instruction, proper spacing of activities, and provision of pre-requisite skills for the tasks assigned to them. While students acknowledge the benefits of using blended learning in the lesson, it is equally crucial that the challenges are resolved so they may be able to comply with the requirements set by the teachers. Teachers, on the other hand, seek the provision of technical skills, training on new pedagogies, and sufficient preparation time for them to effectively develop lessons following a blended learning approach model. With the varied degree of implementation of blended learning in schools, it is necessary for school heads and teachers to work together to develop relevant and responsive policies to support students in complying with the requirements of their classes.

Existing paradig ms of professional development seem to undermine the rich wealth of experiences that teachers have in the schools. Professional learning co mmun ities (PLCs) are designed to encourage teachers to look closely into their contexts and develop relevant courses of actions towards their concerns. The present study aimed to exp lore the experiences of secondary school teachers and school admin istrators in the Philippines while imp lementing PLCs. Interviews and focus group discussions involving 40 teachers and 24 school heads and head teachers from four d ifferent schools were transcribed and analyzed for emerging themes. Results reveal that there are four primary challenges experienced by the teachers in participating to PLCs: overloads and time conflicts, lo w trust towards fellow teachers, conflict with ranking and pro motion schemes, and failure to appreciate benefits of participation. These challenges are rooted in the school operations and school culture. In terms of opportunities, the following themes are identified: enriched learning strategies and materials, support for new hires, better interaction between school heads and teachers, and more contextualized discussions of school and student concerns. These opportunities can be explored by school heads in improving the quality of professional development activities imp lemented in the school. Results also pose challenge to school heads on how to better engage the teachers into participating into PLCs to maximize the opportunities.

Studies show that university students are big fans of FB, but to date, no local study documenting the association between FB use and academic performance among Filipino college students has yet been published. Thus, this research investigated the extent of FB use among students in a private university in the Philippines and correlated it to their General Weighted Average (GWA). A total of six hundred eighty-six (686) freshmen and sophomores participated in the survey. Results showed a weak but positive correlation between FB use and GWA, implying that more time spent on FB is associated with better academic performance. This may be attributed to the finding that most of the students use Facebook to update themselves on school activities and work with other students in completing course and school requirements. The students spend an average of 2 hours every week using Facebook, peaking during the weekends. This study provides evidence that FB offers a useful platform for students' academic communication. Details of school-related FB use by students as well as teachers may be subjects for future studies.

Through the effective integration of various teaching resources, carry out the teaching design of “basic nursing technology” for the nursing specialty in the information environment based on Bloom’s education objective classification. Select 200 nursing students from two natural classes in the third year of undergraduate nursing major as the research objects with100 students in the experimental group and 100 students in the control group. The experimental group adopted Bloom’s objective classification teaching mode, and the control group adopted the traditional teaching model. They have carried out the teaching intervention to ensure the consistency of teachers, textbook use, teaching hours, and teaching progress between the two groups. The evaluation model of the teaching design results is the RBF neural network. The model improves the convergence ability of the RBF network by dynamically changing the control parameters of the L-M algorithm. RBF realizes the goal of the comprehensive analysis of course teaching effects evaluation and various influencing factors. The results showed that the differences in self-management ability, information ability, cooperation score, and total score of the experimental group were significantly higher than those of the control group, with statistical significance P < 0.01 . The teaching of Bloom’s educational objective model can enhance students’ subjective consciousness and effectively improve their independent learning ability. The learning effect is improved obviously. This paper studies the teaching approaches to improve nursing students’ comprehensive ability and humanistic care quality and provides a reference for deepening nursing undergraduate teaching reform.