NARRATIVE REPORT

The 20th day of March marks our first day in Practice Teaching, during this month we find ourselves adjusting to the life of being like an actual teacher. There we learned about how to make a lesson plan, how to manage our time to accomplish everything that we plan for our lesson proper, how to handle different students, and how to encourage your students into learning. 

On my first day of practice teaching, my cooperating teacher told me to observe for a while, so I couldn’t teach right away. Days passed and my CT told me to prepare to teach about floor plans, it was hard to find materials and to prepare for my lesson because we didn’t have a guide—a module to be exact. It was hard to find resources and I was clueless about what specific topic should I look for; I didn’t know what should be the limitations of the topic that should be discussed. So, I asked Sir Allan Zacarias (who is my critic teacher) about it he told me what information I should look for. When I finished writing my lesson plan I gave it to him, and he told me about the things that I should work on in creating my lesson plan. On the day that I first stood in front of the class and have my first lecture, he was at the back of the classroom observing me. After every section that I had my lecture on, he gave his observations; he told me of the things that I should work on and recognize my strengths. Also, during this week I was able to know the name of my students, this makes it easier to call them and recognize them during our class.

On my last week of teaching in the month of March, I discussed Elevation Plan which also includes the sub-topics front, side, and rear elevation. On the rest of the remaining days when I’m not having a lecture, the students continue doing their unfinished drawing plates which are about the floor plan. Completing all the plates is necessary as it will also be used in the next activity which is about making an elevation plan.

In the month of April, I have already pretty much adjusted to everything. Everything seems to be chill and bearable. During the month of April, we don’t have many lectures we now focus on completing all the performance tasks. My critic teacher told me that our subject doesn’t have that much of a lesson, we mainly focus on hands-on activities so most of the quarter is filled with doing activities rather than having lectures.

In the first week of April, the students began doing the first elevation plan which is about the front elevation plan. During their activity days what I do is roam around the classroom and check on the students’ output and see if they need some assistance or if they are having a problem following the instructions. From what I observed, their activity days are their favorite days. They don’t like having lectures, but they love it when they draw. They are well-behaved and focused these days.

In the 2nd week of April, they are just continuing their plates and starting doing other plates which are about the side and rear elevation view. Just like the other days, I roam around the classroom and start guiding the students who needed my assistance. As the days passed, I recognized almost all my students’ names and faces, that’s why it’s easier for me to call them out whenever they started to get noisy and chaotic.

The last week of April comes, and students now start to prepare for their exam week while we the teachers started preparing to make their exams. During this week, we just had our students review for their exam and then let them take it the next day. After that, we checked their papers, and we also began recording their work and finalizing their grades.

The month of May came which marks the start of the 4th quarter. On the 2nd day of May, my CT brief me about how short this quarter will be, because we are handling grade 10 students they had to finish early since they will be preparing for their Moving Up. This quarter will be different since we will be using different software, which is called SketchUp, during our first 3 quarters we’ve been studying how to use the AutoCAD software and now it will be different because we will now be discussing how to create 3D drawings or models.

For the 1st week of May, my CT told me that he will be handling the class and that I will be the one in charge of helping them in their activities. He first discussed 3D drawing and told them about SketchUp. There he discussed all the commonly used commands/tools in SketchUp. He also told the students about what will be different on their drawing plates.

For the 2nd week of May, they started their first activity. And as usual, I just roam around the classroom and help them if ever they couldn’t understand the process of drawing the given activity. In the 3rd week of May, they started doing the 2nd activity. From what I observed, it takes a week for them to finish the whole drawing/activity. And since we were using only 1 laptop to project the activity it's hard for us to progress at the same pace, since some of the students are having trouble following while the others are fast learners. So, what I do is sometimes I just go to the student and tell him what the next step will be.

For the 4th week of May, I had a lesson about how to apply materials to an object using a Paint Bucket tool. Every time that I demonstrate one step, I let the students try it so they could also experience how to do it in SketchUp. For the remaining days when I don’t have a lecture, I just let my students continue their unfinished activity.

On the last week of May and on the 1st and 2nd day of June, the students started their 3rd activity. And as usual, I just roam around the classroom. Every time I do that, I noticed that my students gradually improved their skills in drawing, and some of them can already do things on their own. That makes me happy and proud.

In the first week of June, I already started preparing for their exam. What I did first was review the past lesson and the next day, they had their exam. During that time, I was left in the class because my CT have an orientation along with our students in other schools for their upcoming competition. I was worried at first because they tend to get chaotic thankfully, I was able to handle them without having trouble. After their exams, we checked their papers and recorded them.

In the 2nd week of June, we started recording all the activities and started finalizing their grades. We also reminded the students of what activities are they missing. As the grades are finalized, we started to encode them right away, because it will determine if the students will be able to attend their Moving Up ceremony. This week is also the busiest week we had because we are now preparing for demo teaching.

The last week of June comes which marks the end of our Practice Teaching days. On the 19th and 20th of June, we are now finalizing all the materials we needed for our demo teaching, to be honest, it was really nerve-wracking and we’ve been under a lot of stress. And then the DAY finally comes, on the 21st of June we had our demo teaching, our schedule is close to each other so it's hard to help each other unless you are finally finished with your demo. I was the 3rd person to have a demo, so I had to prepare everything on my own. Thankfully I had my CT, he helped me with my setup and give me tips at the last minute. I didn’t have a chance to orient my students properly about my demo since they were at the assembly, but my CT helped me excuse them 30 minutes prior to the time that I will have my demo teaching. As I finished, he congratulated me and told me that I did a great job, he said that even though I have those lapses I was able to overcome so I was very grateful. This was also my last day to properly meet them, I was able to part with my students whom I used in my demo teaching, but sadly I couldn’t meet them.