THE STRENGTH OF THE REACT (RELATING-EXPERIENCING-APPLYING-COOPERATING-TRANSFERRING) TEACHING STRATEGY IN A CONTEXTUALIZED GRADE 8 SCIENCE SPIRAL CURRICULUM CLASS.

This quasi-experiment was designed to determine the strength of the REACT Teaching Strategy, vis-a-vis a Contextualized Grade 8 Science Spiral Curriculum. It was intended to drive students toward pragmatic meaning-making, leading them towards being society's problem-solvers and critical thinkers. Student subjects were grade eight students enrolled in a public school in Caloocan City, a first-class urbanized city in Metropolitan Manila. Via the Solomon Four-Group Design and using Stanine Scaling, students were categorized into three (3) groups: Below Average, Average, and the Above Average group. Aided by the Extreme Group Approach (EGA) as the sampling technique, only the extreme groups, specifically, those students classified as below average and above average were the ones assigned to both experimental and control groups, thereby forming two control groups and two experimental groups. Following the rigors of the Solomon four-group design, two groups were subjected to pre-testing, while the other two groups did not. All the four groups, however, were subjected to post-testing. Using dependent and independent T-tests to determine significant differences within groups and beyond groups, and as substantiated by statistically determining the learning gains of all experimental groups and student feedback, the REACT strategy was proven to be a strong teaching strategy with significant differences computed on the two experimental groups' pretest and post-test, and in comparison with the two control groups. Further, the Below Average Experimental Group posted a learning gain that is significantly higher than that of the Above Average Experimental Group revealing the stronger viability of the REACT Strategy to maximize the learning potential of the Below Average students who may be struggling to find a "goodness-of-fit" between wanting to learn and finding the "best way" to learn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]