My Final journey..

It was a significant experience that makes me more confident in pursuing my dream to become a teacher someday. It is a mixed emotion that this is my last trimester and I will leave the routine and discipline of doing things routinely.  I have so much to bring that I think it would be my sword and my strength in the near future.  I am happy also because finally I need to step up on bringing my dream to reality. The true meaning of learning that I’ve got here will finally be into reality.

I won’t regret writing, submitting ejournals, and agreeing/contrasting on some thoughts with my peers.  I don’t know the feelings but the time I made my final ejournal, I can’t imagine that I about to finish the course, that a year is almost over. I want to thank all my FIC from the start of this course to my co-learners that somehow motivates me with their positive feedback. I won’t forget you even if we never see each other face to face. Hopefully, God willing, we can share thoughts over teaching practices over a cup of coffee.  Finally, this is it guys, rewards are for us, for all our efforts and hardship. Thank you so much.

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Planning is Vital

Planning is one of the most significant activity prior to execution.  Without proper planning we can’t  imagine the product of our works. Like what happened in Boracay, before they called it as the paradise that everyone would love to experience before they die. Tourist are coming from different parts of the world. Even locals are aiming to go there and spend with our loved ones. Boracay today are suffering from some political issues that needs to be solved if they want to keep it as a “paradise” and be able to experience by the next generation. There are some actions that needs to follow but I think it is too late already. Damages are there and the people will suffer for what they have done with the nature. The people there are focus on how they can earn money from its beauty. They forgot that they have the responsibility to take care of it. It was also because of the greediness of the people there, that they never consulted an expert when putting up their business.  As a normal citizen of this country I would say it is on us if we want to change. It will start from ourselves down to our families. We need to educate our children and bring them closer to God. Knowing God will direct you not to become greedy but to consider others before your own self.  We need to listen to the feedback from our superior or those in authorities competent for decision making. If we want to save our nature not only Boracay, we need to plan and construct establishments considering not only the present situation but anticipate also the future.

We need to follow and obey the people that we think they are competent in their position. I never erase the chances of going to Boracay to spend time with my family. I want to save that paradise because it is our pride and dignity. I want my children experience what the people before had experienced from its profound beauty. Boracay somehow signifies our culture and our source of income, but we need to rehabilitate it to preserve our culture and future income as well. Tourist places in the Philippines is one of our government’s source of income. They help in our finances as entrepreneur and as government as a whole.  So, I pray that the rehabilitation plan for Boracay would be implemented and completed as early as possible. Then, let all Filipinos learn to love and preserve the beauty of the nature that we have, and not take advantage of it for a personal agenda.

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Learning from the past.

Our past experiences are part of our present life and helps us to understand and prepare for our future. Our technologies before are not that “high tech” compared to technologies nowadays. When studying before, the only reliable source that we used are books.  If we want to know more about the topics we need to borrow books from the library.  I came from public school and there are limited resources that are available in the library.  However, even if there are limited books and those are the only reference we used when studying, every time our teacher will conduct a short quiz everyone got a high grades. Students before are focused and dedicated in their studies even if life is not that easy.  I believe this is because our parents motivated us to study hard to have a better future not like them. Even without exam, we try to read our books because we don’t have anything to do but to study.  In our province we don’t have a television or internet to spend our extra time, that’s why we keep on reading books that we have.  I believe it was a nice experience from my childhood, learning that life is not the easy, and studying hard will help us to have a better future. That motivates me very much, and when I saw my parents’ teary eyed when we march during our graduation.

For me, even the world is changing including the teaching methods, it is still good to go back on the traditional approach once in a while.  By the way, it is the root cause why there is innovation.  I think there is no reason to forget what we were in the past, but used them to improve our present condition and be better in the future.  The combination of traditional and non traditional might be cool approach in teaching.  It depends on how the student would react on it. I think the non-traditional assessments are like threatening in some way for me. It needs a better communication skills just to justify and explain your side that your peers won’t  misunderstand your opinion. Every students have different attitudes that hard to please same with our teachers. What if everyone wants to express their side and no one would listen because they feel that it is him again.

As a future teacher my opinion in giving assessments to my student would be combination of traditional and constructivist assessments. There is nothing wrong with the traditional assessment but it is on how we apply and evaluate students properly and accurately.  Student-centered approach is the prevailing approach in the 21st century. As a reflective teacher, I would always learn from my past as a learner and used them to improve the learning experience of my students. At the end of the day, the better future is what we are preparing for.

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Planning A Perfect Curriculum

Most parents today are looking for a perfect school for their children. Even if it means we need to spend a thousands of money for their education. As long as the school meets our expectation and can satisfy our standard for learning then so be it. There are many schools in our society that offer quality education for our kids. Are they competent enough to develop our kids potential and  how good are they in providing the effective learning experience for them?

Practically, public schools are mandated to provide quality education to our children.  Government funds goes to them in order to provide quality education to all citizens of the country.  The teachers are professional, board passer and meet the standard of the state to educate student on their specific field.  In the Philippines, one of the main problems in public schools are the facilities and managing too many students.   Like what I felt, If my kids will be part of 50 students in a class, I don’t think he/she can learn a lot with that class.  However, I’ve seen that the curriculum that was implemented in public school are well planned.  I believe that can be implemented more successfully if there are few students per class. I also believed that public school teachers are very competent in their chosen profession.  But the challenge is on handling too many students per class plus poor facilities.

Technologies and innovation plays a great role in 21st century for learning, but again, here in the Philippines, it is still one of the greatest problem we are facing. Unlike other countries they already adapt technologies inside the school and it is considered the biggest source of contribution in education. Philippines are far far away behind in terms of teaching strategies approach compared to our neighbouring countries.  Government should need to review all our resources in order to provide needs of our public school. Philippines is a developing country that most parents can not afford to send their children in private school. Government are responsible in upgrading  our school facilities in order implement curriculum successfully like in the private schools. Every student has the right for a quality education either they are in private or public school. Our teacher’s competence is not the issue anymore.  Hopefully, most public schools are comparable to any known private schools nowadays.

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For better, or for Good?

There are times when we don’t know yet what the word assessment exactly means to our life, but instead it’s the word survival that we usually encountered our everyday life.  More into that, I believe most people don’t give 100% attention to an assessment.  On my personal note, I regretted that I did not pay attention to any assessments may it be in my studies, career or personal life. When I studied this module, I believe If I paid attention to it, I have a better career now.  Now I understand that assessments in school, provides evidences and accurate information to help improve students’ learning experience. It is not merely an opinion or to disgust someone but it is a fair judgement that If I take it positively, it’s for my own good.  I can relate this with the advise of the elders that every young people should taken them into account and follow.  Because they know better than us. This is true with professional teachers who are more reliable to provide accurate assessment for each students he/she handles.  On the other hand, I believe the teachers should explain properly the purpose of assessment and the assessment itself and if possible make sure that the students take it wholeheartedly. With teacher’s sincerity, I think the students could take it positively.

Now that I’am already aware and understand truly the importance of assessment in school or in community, I would like to influence other people to take this seriously.  As assessor, I will give accurate information and as recipient of assessment results, I will take it wholeheartedly. I will be a good example of taking assessment seriously and also lead my kids to trust their teacher as competent assessor for their study progress.

“ASsessment FOR a Purpose”

      In practical sense, I think assessment is somehow an opinion from other people regarding what someone is doing or not doing.  To someone being assessed, it really depends on how he understand and accept such assessment regarding himself.  During my young adult years, I never consider what people told me as long as I didn’t take advantage of them for my own good. I never see the real purpose behind why they speak that to me. My poor understanding on their assessment pushes me to divert my attention and neglect all what they have said to me. It was a negative outlook of my life before. 

      But for now, I’m on my 40s, I am totally open about any feedback that would help me to live life better.  Sometime, we may receive a devastating feedback that we think it is the end of our life.  We have to understand and accept it objectively. Be positive and turn it to be for a good purpose.  On the other hand, healthy assessment from subordinate, colleagues, friends, families, churchmates are very useful to prepare us in our future.  It is for our own good if we fully understand the true meaning of such assessment.  It will direct us to a better solution or approach in our life.  

      With regards to my studies, I would like to be assessed for a purpose, an assessment of learning and as learning.  This will help me gauge myself to this teaching profession I am looking at.  Also, such assessment will help me improve my learning experience and be a prepared teacher someday. 

      As a learner from this module, in the future, I would like to do for my students the assessment AS learning , FOR learning and OF learning.   This is the assessment for a purpose. It is an assessment cycle that the teacher is keep on adjusting and the students are keep on improving. At the end of the subject course outline, the teacher and students meet the learning goals and objective and be able to realize its outcome. 

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In process….

Before when my teacher would ask about our assessment or feedback on her subject and teaching methodology,  I did not assessed her honestly.  Because the things that came into  my mind was to make it fun and answer it wrongly.  I was immature then and I don’t really understand why the school will ask that kind of question to the students.  But what I understand is that they will fail us if we assessed them with low grade and write a negative remarks against them.  So, to play safe, I’m in neutral side or to make it the safest side, I gave the highest grade when giving assessment or feedback without taking it seriously.

 Now from this topic, I truly understand the importance of assessment not only to students but for the teachers as well. It has an ultimate purpose that would benefit me and I should believe in.  In simple feedback request I received as a customer, I will take it seriously, may this be in government or other institution.  Because I now know it will give a big impact to the person or organisation after that assessment and somehow I believe I contributed to their improvement in simple manner. 

On the other side, as someone being assessed as a teacher someday, I should be able to understand the assessment results and take it seriously for my improvement as teacher. I would encourage my students to be honest and don’t be afraid in putting their evaluation. I will explain to them the importance of it and make sure they can see the improvements in me. Same with how I will do different assessments on my students to make sure we are meeting their learning objectives. I would like to have it personal with them in a sense that they feel the sincerity of what we are doing. I could also prepare a metrics on how each of them are progressing well in their learning after every assessments made with them.

When I became a teacher someday, I will apply all the necessary evidence of learning and the component of assessments as evidence that I am a reflective teacher.

Evaluation or reputation?

Evaluation is the process of observing and measuring a thing for the purpose of judging it and of determining its “value” either by comparison to similar things, or to a standard (www.itlal.org/?q=node/93) while reputation is the opinion of majority of people over oneself or typically a result of social evaluation on a set of criteria. Evaluation and reputation are both judged and measured against certain standard or set of criteria. However, evaluation could be more objective while reputation is more subjective. Reputation is an opinion of majority of people, somehow cannot be quantified easily when being measured compared to evaluation that can be put in numbers to make it more objective rather than subjective.

When it comes to real life situation, reputation is very personal in approach. It is the perception of the society to one’s personality. This is mostly seen in politicians and public figures like newscasters, showbiz personalities or even known business entities. They became popular and known because of their reputation. If their reputation is good we admired them and even follow them. So they took care of their reputation seriously. But sometimes, protecting their reputation makes them people pleaser rather than living their life to the fullest and according to God’s purpose in their life. Also, this lead them to suicidal tendencies if they cannot live anymore to their “set” reputation which was approved by the society at large. 

However, evaluation may also mean judging and determining one’s value, but we don’t usually use evaluation for one’s personality. I believe evaluation is mostly used in assessing processes, performances, projects or business entities but not based merely on opinion of the society.  It is objective by nature. 

I believe Evaluation and Reputation are two different terminologies with different uses. It cannot be interchanged. But when it will be used for myself, I would rather be evaluated objectively and I could take care of my reputation based on what God’s standards and not merely on majority of people’s opinion. Because at the end of the day, God is GOD and His judgement surpasses all types of judgment here on earth.

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Closing Time

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”

                        Matthew 7:7

To God be the glory! The wisdom, knowledge and provision comes from God, without Him, I can’t do anything.

This course awaken my understanding on learning theories. It aroused my curiosity and it’s worth studying.  It is not easy to be a student but being a teacher is more difficult than I thought. I know this is just a beginning of my journey.  I’m excited to pursue and learn more about being an educator someday.I was threatened  on the first part of the course, but it turned into motivation to decide to go on. I thought that not all were given a chance to study.  So why am I to stop, it is fulfilling but tempting to quit during the course of the study. Yes! Finally, I completed the course just in time.

I am happy that I learned a lot on making my ejournal, doing my assignment and reading a lot of materials.

And now, as I closed, I will reflect on what went right and what went wrong during the course of my study. A “reflective learner” for the mean time. Then, continue on my online learning journey until I completed the program.

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eJournal Epistemology.

My epistemic belief is that knowledge is understanding on facts and complicated network of concepts (organization of knowledge). Knowledge is clear and certain, because those are propositional knowledge (certainty of knowledge).  It is not something that was inborn to a child but it is something acquired through the years as one physically growing as well (control) and it requires effort to gain knowledge. Hence, it can be acquired through gradual process (speed of learning).

When I was incoming Grade 5, my parents enrolled me into a school manage by a foreigner. So I guessed they adopted a different approach in student’s learning. I was excited on the start of our class. But it turned out to be a disappointment when I found out that my level was not for grade 5, it was grade 3.  I felt insecure because I was demoted on what should be my grade level. But we were advised, that depending on our speed to learn and capability to acquire what was thought, we can be promoted into next level.  They designed the program in such a way that progress really depends on student’s ability to acquire the knowledge and passed an aptitude test based on grade level. It was a self-paced learning with minimal guidance from our teacher. I just have to follow the workbook and complete tasks assignments. Teacher is there to guide and explain things that we don’t know. But it was done individually by our teacher.

It was hard for me to adjust since I came from a traditional teacher-centered approach. Adding to it is my disappointment that I was demoted to lower grade. But now, I realized that I am into gradual acquisition of knowledge. That we have different speed on learning things and acquiring knowledge. That if those knowledge were well programmed, strategize and laid down structurally, I can learn on my own pace.

It was a good experience and reinforces my epistemic beliefs especially on my effort to acquire knowledge based on my own capacity and speed.