HEART: THE DEVELOPED LESSON EXEMPLARS IN UNDERSTANDING CULTURE, SOCIETY, AND POLITICS FOR INNOVATION AND CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE EDUCATION

The main purpose of this study was to develop and validate lesson exemplars in Understanding Culture, Society, and Politics for Innovation and Culturally Responsive Education, which fosters empathy, respect, and inclusive education. A descriptive developmental research design was adopted, and pretests and posttests were administered to 44 students at Calamba City Science Integrated School (CCSIS). Purposive random sampling was employed, selecting one specific section of Grade 11 from the academic track, mainly, STEM strand. A Researcher-made lesson exemplars, pretest/posttest, were validated by the experts and was used to gather data. This had a Lawshe Content Validity Index of 1.00 and Cronbach’s Alpha Coefficient of 0.872 for the pretest and posttest, and 0.921 for the instrument. Four-point Likert Scale, Mean, and Paired T-test were used to analyze the data. Results demonstrated remarkable improvement, with 61.36% of students achieving "Outstanding" performance, 31.82% very satisfactory, and 6.82% satisfactory. No students remained in the "Did Not Meet Expectations" category. The substantial improvement in posttest scores revealed the success of the exemplars in enhancing student understanding and engagement, with an overall performance of 89.84 %. There was a significant difference between the mean scores of the students on the pretest and posttest. The probability value is .000, which is less than the level of significance of P˂ .05. The study’s implications underscore the transformative potential of using validated lesson exemplars to promote higher engagement, better understanding, and improved performance.