LEAD Approach: Learning through Exploration and Adaptive Discovery in Addressing the Lesson Planning Knowledge Gap of Second-Year Home Economics Pre-service Teachers: A Classroom-Based Action Research

Pre-service teachers are expected to align learning outcomes, teaching–learning activities and assessment tasks when they plan lessons, yet many find this difficult. This classroom-based action research examined the effect of the LEAD (Learning through Exploration and Adaptive Discovery) Approach on the lesson planning and teaching demonstration performance of second-year Bachelor of Technology and Livelihood Education (BTLEd) Home Economics pre-service teachers at Davao Oriental State University. At baseline, 22 of 27 students (81.48%) did not pass an oral recitation on metacognition, and even those who passed could not produce a well-structured lesson plan. A Why-Why analysis traced the problem to insufficient academic preparation, which led to knowledge gaps, fear of giving incorrect answers and misaligned lesson plans. The LEAD Approach consisted of eight 45-minute sessions in which students critiqued and rebuilt their own lesson plans one Gagné event at a time, guided by their learning styles, feedback, brief scaffolding and reflection journals. An embedded mixed-methods design was used with 25 students. Lesson plan scores rose from a mean of 2.16 (SD = 0.85) to 13.72 (SD = 3.99) out of 20, t(24) = 13.50, p < 0.001, d_z = 2.70; 13 students (52%) reached the 75% passing score. The 19 students who re-demonstrated after a structured reflection interview improved from 23.58 to 52.32, t(18) = 10.02, p < 0.001, d_z = 2.30, although only 3 of 25 students reached 75% of the 88-point teaching demonstration rubric. Thematic analysis of the interviews identified misalignment of objectives and activities, unpreparedness, and weak mastery of lesson flow as the main reasons for low first performances, and feedback use and lesson-flow mastery as the students’ improvement plans. The LEAD Approach was associated with large gains in lesson planning, but most students still need further support to reach the expected teaching standard.