Module 1-3 on Narrative Writing

I was certain I wanted to become a teacher that is why Education is definitely the most important thing in my life. I want to develop more my own personality, boost confidence that will increase my general knowledge and skills. To better reach my dreams, I do believe that I should have proper education for getting bright future.

As I mentioned with my previous journal, I was forced to stop my education due to financial constraints but when I learned about distance learning programs, through hard work, I feel very privileged to have been given the opportunity to study again. UPOU has not only here to shape my future but also it has given me the opportunity to meet new people, professors, students that we may share common interest. They motivated me in so many ways and become my inspiration.

While continuing learning, I used this powerful tool even at work. From what I already know and already experienced, I can now integrate this into positive outcome. At work, as a trainer, I help my trainees to construct their idea and be more responsive on their own needs because they have daily tasks at hand. Make them engage with activities and develop their interests so that they may be able to explore and solve problems. As of now, my trainees follows my instructions, know what they are doing and why they need to complete their tasks. It is my duty to work as a team so that we can transform by bringing negative into positive result. It seems to me that all this have to do with constructivism.

Honestly speaking, in this course, their learning-teaching materials developed my abilities. This certainly built self- discipline. Reading and supplementary materials are overwhelming but Dr. Lou gave us an option to breathe and slowdown to digest the information we need to learn. My interaction among my classmates and professors improves my personal advancement, building my expertise, my behavior and became a good learner in different aspect. My source of confidence is through their effective teaching process. It inspires me to do things on my own as a self-directed learner.

As a future educator, I would present my own experiences to our younger generation and help them by teaching them how to learn, engage and construct their thoughts. I will make sure that their values and point of views be heard. I have grown in many ways, that I do know how to answers those questions and get a solution to all those challenges. I can use my knowledge for further developing and creating new learning skills. I can look at one situation from a different perspective so learning never stops.

However there are still issues in the quality of teachings in the Philippines. Student’s life is not all about education. We also need to consider their interests and we shouldn’t force them to learn what they do not have interest especially to our young learners. Teachers should seek new strategies, new learning material to get their attention. Reading doesn’t have to be boring. Let them find educational books that they think would be enjoyable and try to engage with their imagination and views. With this, teachers are not actually influencing young students that reading is really fun but also increase the efficiency learning of the students as well.

Finally it has become clear to me that teaching’s intention is not just providing guidance and support but help the learner to bring out their best and use their critical thinking.

Learn TODAY, Achieve TOMORROW…

My life when I was still “young” was very challenging and it was never easy. I carried a lot of responsibilities both physically and emotionally. As a teenager and a student at the same time, I’ve encountered pain, low self-esteem and pressure along the way. This was the stage when I felt I needed some sort of freedom and I was lucky that my parents allowed me to do things that I want to do.

 I became more confident during this stage. I chose to enroll on one of the University and took up engineering course that I thought would match my interest. They’ve provided amazing educators and excellent mentoring. They fully shared their knowledge and expertise up to problem solving to mathematical procedures to follow. We exchange ideas scientifically as basis for our agreed solutions.

At first, it was very interesting, especially during interaction with my classmates. In between those times, I also need to balance my schooling and part time job. I knew I wanted to learn and take whatever opportunities that comes along my way but I was told I cannot continue my education due to financial constraints. And I gave up!

I’ve lost and wasted   13 years of my life. A lot of regrets and this cannot be undone. I had a solid plan so I could come back at school and finish it. I took all the challenge so I worked hard and I thought of saving some money for my future. I told that I wished to study and still carry my dreams. Then I enrolled in UPOU where I could manage my own time. They allowed us to better use our own thinking and gave sense of accomplishment. I learned to engaged and interact with my classmates in a variety of ways. We are working as a team to build our characters, trust and confidence as well. I believe, when you desires something, nothing can stop you from achieving your dreams. I was born to learn till the end.

At work, I’ve introduced my social learning principles. I modeled my own experiences for them to understand our real world, for them to use this as their inspiration to motivate themselves to work harder and achieve their goals. I always encourage my trainees to not stop dreaming no matter how easy or difficult our life is, we would always find a great solution. Try to learn and acquire knowledge and practices from others experiences. Communication and interactions could help us improve our knowledge. I find it useful to share and construct everything I’ve learned. Changing all negative experiences into positive aspects and nothing could stop me!

Finally, it helped me get back on track. I am sure that I possess much knowledge and able to understand reality. I am able to use these experiences I had to pursue my goals. This approach became the great significance of the knowledge of epistemology in my teaching and learning skills. While taking full time at work, I know that one day I will get my diploma.

Image taken from Google images

Not Just a one way ticket

 I was moved by a short Indie film entitled “Changing classroom”. All of the students were not aware that the teacher was already inside the room because students were all busy with so many stuff. Teacher was very disappointed seeing her student’s behavior as she entered the classroom. She had been thinking what was happened during the day. So, the next day, in order for the students to be more participative and interactive, she encouraged the students to form a group and share topics that matters to them and what their interests are. Teacher noticed that all of the students liked the activity.

 How constructivist I am?

Being a working students, I tend to be participative and well interact with all my classmates and co-workers to access more information and knowledge. I usually ask some of my classmates and co-workers because I want to know also about the work of others for me to adapt learning approach that may help continual progress in my academics and jobs. Learning from every one of them contributes greatly to what I had already in mind and utilize this to further improve and develop my skills and knowledge.

How to become contructivist?

Being a working student, I would prefer sharing my thoughts, what I already know, my experiences in life so that everyone around me would have the chance to view and expand their ideas. To become constructivist, I would like to empower everyone’s understanding through exploration. To my classmates, sharing good thoughts, helping them with our self-generated strategies on our activities improve our work and personal relationships. I believe our different knowledge could be constructed effectively. The idea is not just based on what we should learn but how we could actively collaborate individual’s skill to learn grow and make changes.

How may I influence education practice to shift towards constructivist ideology and practice? (Should I?)

 We have probably done a lot of strategy to make our learning progress. And this idea directs us to where we are heading that makes our teaching process will work best for students like me. Perhaps, my education practice fits right to constructivist ideology and practice because I always consider every one idea and help discovering other methods on our own. Even in the most traditional teaching, continuous support and guidance can enhance some type of knowledge. As for me, communication serves as a guide to expand and share my knowledge like what I am doing both in school and workplace. I will continue to use this approach to simply construct and interpret the whole concepts.

How Constructivist theory shapes an individual

I am a working student back when I was in College. So I have work in the mornings followed by my responsibilities as a student. It became my routines. So whenever I attended my first subject in the afternoon, I was really tired already and couldn’t concentrate. I was pretty sure that it has a negative effect both on my work and studies. Getting a poor grade was really difficult at that time, but I cannot do anything because I am also concentrating in my work. After trying so hard, I still get bad grades to the point that my friend offered an after school tutorial but I refused instead.

Thanks to my early experience. I sooner realized that it would have been a different story if I let my friend to tutor me. But as the saying goes, past is past and that I have to move on. That was my first heart break on my acads.

 When I came across Constructivist theory emphasize that the learners construct and integrate information inside their mind based on their experiences and prior knowledge. This made realized that scaffolding could have helped me improved my grades through the help of others. That a person with a high knowledge self-efficacy will helps to guide a person who is perceived to have less.

 I was so grateful when I entered UPOU because we have this strong support from other students. Assimilation and accommodation were included in the picture in constructivist theory. As a future educator, we should be there for the student not to spoon fed but act as a support system to help them able to develop and create their own learning. This will help them succeed in the future.

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Resources: https://www.gamcare.org.uk/get-s

Image: https://www.dreamstime.com/stock-illustration-brain-intelligence-development-concept-sillhouette-two-human-head-construction-tools-image77786877

To study or to sleep?

Since I am a full-time employee and works on shifting schedule, I mostly did not able to have enough sleep. Being busy with lots of things in the company, when I got home, I am usually so tired and regularly get 4 hours of sleep everyday. I only get a full bed time during my rest day.  So, when I am in the company, I always grab a chance to have a power nap whenever we are on break to keep me up on my work activities which requires full attention.  I tend to multitask. While working on a powerpoint presentation, I am also doing leg work at the same time. Sometimes, it works but there are times that the quality of my work did not match to what I expected. Then I realized that multi-tasking has a negative effect on performance.

I have to stay up because after 8 hours of work, I have to focus now on my readings to be able to catch up on our forums and several tasks. But since I am not getting enough sleep, I can’t think straight. The best way to complete your tasks is to focus on the most important aspect of it. Short tasks usually can be completed and did not require intense concentration. This could avoid wasting of time. However, there are other prioritization factors such as work habits and work ethic. These two are significant ideals for us to focus on our tasks. It is important to have a full attention.

As a future educator we should be able to balance the activities given to the student, yes we teach them to be critical thinkers but we also need to consider their personal limitations.

Santrock. Online Learning Center.
http://www.mhhe.com/socscience/education/edpsych/santrocked02/ch07a_sa.html

I am very fortunate to have a role model and a mentor in my life, most especially in the middle of my ups and downs personal problems. There are a lot of people who would give their support and advices but few of them are willing to go beyond. These are the people who would tell you to do things in a proper way and would tell you straight when things don’t work out.

My Models and Mentors
List the most important role models and mentors in your life. Then describe what their positive modeling and mentoring have meant to your development.

Role Models and Mentors	Their Contributions
My Mother Florencia	She is my greatest teacher.  I am very sure she is indeed the foundation from which I have built my learning. Faith in God and respect to others are the greatest lesson I’ve learned from her.
My sister Joyce and Liz	Her engagement across a wide range of disciplines taught me that it is not about what the world has to offer, it is about what I can offer to the world. She would always encourage me to be more patient and continue to strive to pursue my dreams.
A Prof back in College	Nearing his 50’s and having obtained a lot of academic credentials but still pursuing a lot of scholarly goals, he is showing that we should never stop learning.
My special friend Marc	He pushed me to continue my studies despitemy busy schedules. He always there to remindme to follow my dreams- my dream of becoming a good educator. He is the one who motivates me to not give up when things go wrong. Iam very thankful for his unwavering love and support just like my parents.

The type of role model I want to be for others (other learners)
Describe which characteristics and behaviors you believe are the most important for you to model for your students.

One who has a broad coverage of knowledge but willing to honestly say if he does not know something

One who does not have to make his co-mentors inferior just to show off and prove his edge over the others

One who looks not only on the scores, but sees beyond that (was the student who did well on the test had a comfortable place to study last night, or did he do it despite having to go home late as a working student

One who is not afraid to commit mistake and learn from that mistake to strive more.

One who is responsible and very good in decision making and dependable

How I will incorporate models and mentors in my profession (as an educator)
Describe a systematic plan for bringing models and mentors into your students’ lives in one or more domain(s) you plan to teach, such as math, English, science, music, and so on.

As an educator, modelling is still the best tool to shape student’s behavior.  In modeling, student’s learning would be much easier by applying the modelling process which is the ARRM (Attention, Retention,Reproduction and Motivation) because the teacher will show them how to solve a problem then student will store that information and try to duplicate what was taught on them and lastly guide them and praise them for their showmanship. As an educator we should make them feel that we are always there for them every step of the way in order for them to be motivated so that in the future, they can be successful in life like others.  We cannot teach all the good values in life but making them feel that they need to equip themselves of being positive and optimistic on the things around them, then, they are most likely to become successful in all of their endeavors.

Who will be my education mentor? What would my ideal education mentor be like?
Do you have someone in mind who might serve as an education mentor when you become a teacher? If so, describe the person. What would your ideal education mentor be like?

I had a Humanities teacher- who has been so effective in teaching her subject. We did not have to learn the subject out of compulsion or fear but out of enjoyment. My ideal mentor is someone who goes beyond the textbooks and has the influence to say that to his students because that’s what education really is. She treat us not just a student but treat us as her own family. She makes us feel more comfortable the way she expound her teaching skills.

“In order to succeed, people need a sense of self-efficacy, to struggle together with resilience to meet the inevitable obstacles and inequities of life.”

Albert Bandura

• How do your personal beliefs about you capabilities, both positive and negative, influence your motivations to learn?

I came from a poor family. My mother was able to finished her secondary school while my father was an undergraduate students in college. I only have three siblings who were able to finish their College. My family has been my backbone on my learning journey.  Being a full time worker and a student at the same time is a very challenging one. My motivation to continue my studies is to help my family, build my self-confidence, gain knowledge and be able to help the community. Embracing my challenges and having that strong self-determination and high self-efficacy will help me achieve my goal which to finish my College degree. I am so grateful that I continue my studies because I was able to develop my self-fulfilling prophecy. I had become more confident and positive in everything that I do.

• What factors facilitated some behaviors that you (or a significant other person, say in your family) has essentially acquired through observation?  

I truly admire my brother Raymund despite his failures from the past. I have seen him how he was determined to pursue his studies. No matter how difficult our life is, he is striving more to fulfill for his goals. With that determination that he is showing I should also need to possess that attitude to “Never stop believing never stop dreaming”. Conquering that greatest fear would always be my guiding path to make that dreams into reality. If he can do it, others can also do.

• How could we use social learning to conserve our traditions? 
  On the other hand, how does social learning theory explain contemporary socio-cultural transitions?

Social learning is all about how people learned from others through observing others. It is the process of modelling, observing and imitating. For example, by showing them how to act, obey and do the ethical way to abide the law of God and law of the people. One of the family tradition or gesture is the “pagmamano” which up to this day this has been our practice and now being practiced by my nieces and nephews. This is a symbol of respect to elderly. Another tradition is going to church every Sunday. Me and the rest of the family went to the church every Sunday. This tradition and values will pass on from one generation to the next. By teaching the young ones the value of respect, trust and having a positive outlook they will most likely to succeed in life.

• How should we utilize media and technology in the context of social learning?

Media and technology enhanced our teaching and learning skills which allow learners like me how to communicate easier and support our teaching and learning skills. These two are beneficial for everyone because it is the most prominent ways to engage and communicate with variety of groups. We can also utilize by sharing common values and goals Blog is one example of social media. A significant tool that students are using nowadays on their projects wherein they could blog about their experiences and share it, I sometimes call this as an online diary. But we have to be responsible, value and respect each other on the things we say and share on media.

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