Practice teaching is one of the most awaited parts of every pre-

service teacher’s journey. It is a life changing

opportunity as it gives meaning to all the

rigorous academic preparations that one

underwent for more than three years. As one

who is almost done of all these stuffs, I felt

excited at first until I finally started

practicing my chosen career. Day to day

moments that you open your eyes and it still

dark and you’re still sleepy is like putting

chili oil on top of an ice cream. You still

have to eat it because at the bottom of the

cone, there stays the sweet snowy cream that

you have been wanting for. This experience tested my faith on my

decisions. Often that I ask myself, “Do I really want this?” and often that wrinkles occur

on the space between my nose and my eyebrows. However, with all those shillyshallies,

I never compromised my students’ opportunity to learn. As much as possible, I have to

give all the knowledge that they deserve. The things they need to learn. Natural

occurrences that they have to understand and most importantly is to help them find the

teacher within themselves.

To provide them with such

accurate information is not an easy

task because it’s not simply the recall of

things that your professor have told

you for the past years. It also involves

reeducation of yourself that calls for

independent learning, self-discovery, and

a lot of books. If you deprive yourself

with knowledge, same is true with your

students. Practice teaching trained me

to read more books. I accepted the truth

that I AM LIMITED but I CAN

EXTEND BEYOND. The quest of knowledge is after all infinite and so

with a teacher being a student.

MY REFLECTIVE JOURNAL

Cagayan State COLLEGE OF TEACHER Andrews University EDUCATION

Campus

“The Practice Teaching

Experience”

Practice teaching is very backbreaking to the nth power. In fact, while I’m writing

this part of my journal, I’m exercising my

back because I have been sitting for two

hours now. It’s been three months since

I’ve been a cave man in my room. There

are lot of things to accomplish that’s why

you don’t have time anymore to watch TV

or even text to your friends. Sometimes, it

comes to a point that you think you’re

crazy because you always find yourself

talking to no one. It even changes the way

your brain works and of how you see the

world. Call it delusional but there’s

nothing I can do. It’s part of the making of

a beautiful story.

Indeed, Beautiful.

As a requirement in our practice teaching,

we have to have lesson plans of our daily teaching. This is what I don’t like. Making

lesson plans is a curse. “Effort na effort ang peg”- sleepless nights and a lot of thinking.

The struggle starts with the construction of the objectives. It must contain the tree

domains. It’s easy to construct for cognitive and psychomotor but when it comes to

affective, there my brain bursts of too much thinking. Objectives for the affective

domain have been my dilemma and my friends’ dilemma too. Why? Simply because we

teach science and I don’t know if we’re the only ones who can’t extract an affective

objective that makes sense. We even tease ourselves because the moment one already

came up with an objective, we mock her with her melodramatic objective. Think of this,

if your topic is all about Quantum numbers, where on earth can you find the connection

of the azimuthal quantum number to the heart? Truly, constructing objectives is a

challenge. Well that’s just the start. The hardest thing, I believe, in terms of lesson

planning is your choice of motivation. This is when often times that I am screwed at my

computer staring blankly at it. We, practice teachers, always agree that the

hardest part of a lesson plan to make is the

motivation. The enthusiasm of the class for

the whole period relies on the motivation.

It is a challenge to sustain the energy of

the students until the last second of the

period.

One more thing that makes teaching even

harder is the choice of strategies and

techniques in teaching. Practice teaching taught me employ

techniques that I never learned in my academic

preparations. Because it seemed that I have no

knowledge at all bout strategies, I should find a

way. I searched the internet on all teaching

resources that I might use. However, the answers

are just in front of me- my cooperating teacher. I am

so lucky that I was with Ma’am Rosechelle. She is

one of a kind. She is a very intelligent woman. A

dedicated teacher. A teacher who is loved by her

students. How I wish that I can be as creative as

Ma’am Rosechelle. She taught a lot of strategies

and even introduced to me some games in

Chemistry. Games that she conceptualized by

herself. Isn’t that amazing? , indeed it is. She is

really an inspiration. Because of her, I am now

pushing myself to learn more strategies and

different approaches to add in my pedagogy. I’m

now pushing my limits to a more creative and

imaginative horizon.

To add with the most memorable events of a practice teacher is his Final

demonstration. I experienced too much pressure and stressed nights as I prepare with

my final demonstration. My lesson plan just went four revisions to finally come to life.

Not to mention, the last minute modification of the strategy that I have to use.

Nonetheless, all of my hardships were worth it. I am satisfied with my grade and I was

really happy with the result. It’s the most successful teaching that I had. Once again,

my cooperating teacher was the person behind that success. If not because of her, my

teaching demonstration would have been an ultra-epic-fail-mega-disaster. So I owe her

a lot. I am not who I am now if not because of her.

Moreover, practice teaching had opened my doors to meet new friends. A friendly

relationship with my co- practice teachers was developed. A different atmosphere that

was not like before when we were still at CSU. We became closer and I really liked that

idea. We talk about our frustrations and our

experiences here in TCSHS. We laugh together, eat

together and take pictures together.

Exhausting it is! But just like any other training, we should learn to live with it. The practice teaching experience is an experience of a lifetime. It’s an advantage for any pre-service teacher

because it gives one a bird’s eye view of the teaching profession. It’s a preparation to life, for life and with life.