Time flies really fast.

One moment I was just an aspiring social science major in PNU but now this dream to become a social science teacher is within reach. I can't express how fascinated I am as of this writing, thinking that in a few months I will be a teacher in Araling Panlipunan and I can now use the knowledge and skills that I learned and acquired in the past three years to actually teach on actual students in an actual teaching field where I will be paid for educating young minds.

Looking back at those experiences I had in Manila Cathedral School, I can say that it really honed me to be the better pre-service teacher that I am now. Those thrilling experiences filled with roller coaster of emotions enabled me and widened my perspective in all aspects of the teaching profession. In this retrospection of mine about my whole practice teaching journey, I will just give emphasis to the highlights of this memorable phase in my teaching journey as a pre-service teacher. I will try to make it as detailed and short as possible. So, here it goes...

INITIAL DEMO TEACHING

My first demo observation was a failure for me. During my class, the internet connection was so poor and my laptop was broken at the very day and time of my demo teaching. I was discouraged and felt really frustrated because of what happened that time. I spent the half of my time configurating and trying to salvage my demo teaching. After 30 mins, I was able to fix it but it was too late because many aspects in my class that follow were compromised. Another thing that made the situation hard because it was my first time meeting the students so we don't really have connections and they don't even know what to do since they did not know me well. It was frustrating and discouraging, to be honest. Nevertheless, this instance in practice teaching journey is indeed a lesson for me. I won't let that happen again, especially when I actually teach in the school that I am applying to.

GRAND DEMO TEACHING

Actually, some time after the horrors of my initial demo teaching, I was able to redeem myself to my students who's learning were compromised because of the conflicts on my end. I was able to let them experience my true teaching instruction. Going back to the real topic, I felt validated and redeemed by my performance in my grand demo teaching. It was a great time indeed because I saw in the eyes of my students that they really learned something from our class. Aside from that, it was also observable on their reflective answers in our activity, as well as on our kasunduan that time. Although I felt those feelings during the time of my grand demo teaching, it was not my priority, honestly, since I had a lot of time having class discussion on various sections in grade 10. What really matters to me, even as of this writing is for them to learn something and make our lessons in class sensible and applicable to their own lives.

LESSON PLANNING

We created lesson plans a lot, really. We had four meetings per week in grade 10 and all those meetings have 3 lesson plans, both asynchronous and synchronous, making it six per week. Although it was kind of heavy task because it was a lot but I saw it as a learning opportunity for me to master the lesson planning. Well, with all humility, I am still humbled and proud at the same time of myself because my LP was commended by Prof. Colis among all in class and told them to visit my Lesson plan for reference of a good and right lesson planning, specifically in Objectives writing. All those critiques and advices gave by my CT, Sir Jaren and Supervisor, Prof. Colis will always be helpful as I grow in my career as an Araling Panlipunan teacher in the near future.

PORTFOLIO WRITING

At first, I had no idea on how to navigate the google sites because I haven't experienced it yet in our previous requirements, we often used it in my organizations outside academics but I was not the one who's in-charge of using and designing it. Honestly, I did not do it right away, unlike my classmates who were doing it during the span of our practice teaching. I did my portfolio on the last three days of this term before the announcement of extension of submission deadline. I tried it for an hour and luckily I was able to familiarize myself in navigating the google sites. I will leave it to Prof. Colis if I did it very well. lol. While doing this portfolio in Google sites, I realized that it is really important that we, teachers are familiar in navigating various applications in the internet, especially in our current situation where we are gradually transitioning to hyflex in schools because it will help us cope with the demands of education 5.0.

CLASSROOM-BASED ACTION RESEARCH

We had a classroom-based research in our Field Study course last term. Although it was just a proposal but it gave us a glimpse on how to create a classroom-based action research. During the whole practice teaching course, it was not our most priority to do. In fact, we did our classroom-based action research after our synchronous sessions in all of our classes. We encountered a lot of challenges in this online set up of education, especially in students participation in class therefore we came up to a research that aims to develop a strategy in teaching Mga Kontemporaryong Isyu in a most meaningful learning experience where students are enabled through enhancing their critical thinking skills and creative thinking in this education set up.

Generally, my whole practice teaching journey is an eye-opener. It opened my mind to wider perspective on teaching profession in the new normal education. All the knowledge and skills that I learned and acquired have capacitated me to be ready to dive in to the next phase of my journey of becoming an Araling Panlipunan teacher in the future.