My Practice Teaching journey is a great experience and a privileged for me as a future teacher. I had the opportunity to teach Grade 10 Caregiving students under their class adviser Mr. Joseph G. Acena at the University of Northern Philippines.
My practice teaching internship in this class was started on March 2022 through an online learning via Google meet application for synchronous classes while google classroom and messenger application for asynchronous classes.
One of the most challenging part of my experiences that brought me sleepless nights is in the preparation for lesson plan in which I’ve learned and mastered later on in making it so. A lesson plan is a teacher’s detailed description of the course of instruction or ‘learning trajectory’ for a lesson. Another thing that made me still awake until 4 a.m is the preparation and studying for the lesson and making of power point presentations and instructional materials that challenge my mind and time to prepare but I still considered it as wonderful experiences it because it trained me very well to be more efficient and effective teacher in the future.
From the beginning until the end of the online class discussion was very memorable and exciting and that all I know because the topics in Caregiving class are very exciting and relatable to the students. In the whole duration of class some of the students are active and participating while others are not. This kind of experience is very challenging for a practice teacher like me on how to handle it and what teaching strategies should I do. Inevitable, this kind of learning isn’t it they call it boring? maybe because they are not in a physical contact with me as their practice teacher with their classmates, maybe they are still sleepy and yes, bored somehow, and most probably having a loss or poor internet connectivity. Despite these challenges, I am still very grateful for the past online class meetings it because of the online platforms that helped a lot in students’ academics and howsoever the students learned and got updated with the lessons.
The start of face to face classes on May 2022, the students, teachers, and we pre-service teachers were very grateful and thankful to God because of almost two years of not having a face to face classes then finally have it.
Dealing with the ideal classes or I mean the usual kind of learning back then, having the teacher in front and with the students inside a classroom was the most unforgettable experience of mine.
With our first meeting with the class I felt slightly nervous because it is different already from the online class. From this first meeting until the last, all of the students became more active and participative while class discussion is ongoing. The class discussion became more lively and sound and the responses from the students became fast and very interactive.
Indeed, my practice teaching internship provided me an opportunity as a future teacher to totally immerse in the real life of a school teacher. I experienced the rudiments of teaching in a cyclical process of planning, actual teaching and evaluating learning. It also built up more of my confidence and communicating skills. It also enhanced my teaching quality and learned so much of teaching strategies and methods in handling students and the classroom.