Learn to Improve!

One of the reasons why I enrolled and studied my education units in this distance learning university is to enhance my teaching strategies and develop myself as a mentor of the college students in our beloved university.

Enrolling in this course while working is not an easy task to have. Every week is a struggle for me to finish my assignments at the same time, finish my work. However, I see it as a positive response to build myself as I continue the legacy of my parents, relatives, and grandfather as a teacher.

In this module, I learned a lot of Cognitive Learning Theories, particularly in the information processing approach. I learned the three theories which are information processing theory- gives an idea that the human mind is like a computer in the learning process, dual coding theory- assumes that cognition is with verbal associations and visual representations, and cognitive load theory- the load should not exceed to the capacity of the learner.

These theories give me a head on how to put up my learning strategies, assessments, and discussions of my class this coming August. It gives me an understanding that I did not experience for the long three years in the academe. With this knowledge, I already know the various areas that I need to improve in my teaching strategies so that students can have attention, memory, and understand the lessons that I will impart to them easily.

In my previous classes, I usually emphasize the middle part of my class which is according to the primary- recency effect, it is not efficient. It explains that the first and last part is the most important part of the discussions since this is the time that students can easily remember. It also helps me to change the mindset of purely verbal associations in presenting the lessons in the class. According to dual coding theory, we need to equally bought in visual representations and verbal associations. And lastly, as a teacher, I now understood that the load of the activities, assignments and information that I need to give to my students must just be enough for them to restore. Overload means they cannot grasp the whole lesson and could forget it at the end of the day.

These theories help me to improve. I am so excited to apply this learning in the class.

Grand Salute!

People argued that their own undergraduate studies are harder and more complicated than anyone else. We do have different perceptions of what is the most complicated degree program in the world. However, we must try to appreciate one another knowing what the uniqueness of our capabilities is.

There are so many degree programs in our educational system- all are essential in society. There are so many jobs to be with in order to serve the community. There are so many struggles that a student may face in their whole student career.

As a Mass Communication graduate and a teacher, I cannot foresee myself doing the stuff as a nursing student. Honestly, I dreamed to become a doctor someday and promised myself to treat the people for free when I was still a kid. That promise was gone when I fell in love with journalism and media studies. Knowing my abilities and evaluating myself as a student, I find a hard time memorizing and getting standardised tests every now and then. This stuff is an example of a nursing student's work in order to survive four years in college, not to mention the sleepless nights and the duty hours that they spent at the hospitals.

"Nursing is the glue that holds a patient’s health care journey together. Across the entire patient experience, and wherever there is someone in need of care, nurses work tirelessly to identify and protect the needs of the individual." -NursingWorld.org

I met a special friend who takes up BS Nursing in one of the famous private universities in the region. As I observed, she was really busy. I also observed some of our students in the College of Arts and Sciences where they got so many demands. I interviewed some of them and it is like a hell for them every single day.

I cannot simply imagine myself to become a nursing student. I cannot survive what they tend to have and accomplish. I cannot understand the struggles that they have been less appreciated in the community.

We may have different arguments on who will be the best student, what will be the most complicated degree programs, or what profession will be the greatest for the community, however, I will continue to believe that choosing to nurse, taking nursing, passing the board examination, and being a nurse is one of the most fulfilling and must be appreciated in the community.

To all aspiring nurses and to my special friend who graduated today, Congratulations in surviving the whole four years as a student, God bless to your review and future endeavours and Remember to serve the people always. I am so proud of you!

This is my GRAND SALUTE!

My Experiences: Not A Theory

Bandura's Social Learning Theory gave us explanations of the real-life situations that
happened to us in acquiring learning. One of the core concepts of the theory is self- efficacy.
It is the belief of a person's capabilities and abilities to succeed in a certain situation that
they do.

Self- efficacy is an essential ingredient to learn. Our beliefs motivate us to learn and unlearn
things in this life. When I was still a college student, I have this low self-efficacy in dealing
speaking in front of a wider audience in a straight English language. I know that I am not an
English speaker. With this, it greatly affects my motivation to learn such as declining the
opportunities as college debater and wasting the opportunity to experience extemporaneous
speaking during the said days.

Personally, believing in yourself is important to achieve your goals and in order to succeed in
life. Based on my experience, your one and only self will not rely on someone but just with
yourself. Don't waste the opportunities in life just because you have this low self-efficacy that
you cannot do anything. Every one of us can make a difference. And you just need to believe
with yourself that you can do it.

Observational learning gave me a glimpse of how I acquired my learning on particular things.
There are a lot of behaviours that I got because of observation. One of the things that I have
is the way I speak words. I pronounce the way people exactly pronounce words. I even got
their style of speaking and writing. Secondly, the way I deliver my broadcast. This is when I
observe my idols in the media industry. I tried to imitate them and it did a great way. Lastly,
the values that I had. Based on the observations, I gained values that should be proud of.

We can also use social learning by giving a model to the future generation the appreciation of
preserving traditions. As we preserve and give value to our traditions, our cultural sites, and
our culture as a whole, the youth will observe and recognize it and they will also do the same.

Social learning had a great impact on socio-cultural transitions. As we observed, culture per
culture, we can imitate and get their culture and adopt it as our own. This happened during
colonization days. We adopted some of the cultures of our colonizers and that also create our
new tradition and culture on the things in our society.

In today's generation of media and technology, we need to use these platforms in a good
context f social learning. We need to post real information and fight for misinformation &
disinformation in society. With these, people will adopt the behaviour of knowing what is fake
or not. We will also use it as a call to help others, to protect our environment, and appreciate
things that our world have right now. We need to influence the society especially the younger
generation to make a stand and fight for what is right in this society. Media and technology
is so powerful and we need to safeguard its power in order not to use by anyone in bad actions.

importance of social learning, in generation of media and technology, ways to use

Models and Mentors in Life

A mentor is someone who allows you to see the hope inside yourself. Someone who will say, "Let's go do it", not "You go do it"

Life is not easy. It is too hard that some of the people gave up, most of us want to give up.  It is like facing a giant in a battle every single day. However, these challenges, failures and problems in our lives gave beauty in our everyday journey. With these struggles, we can appreciate more the life that God gave us. In our everyday struggle, we do have models and inspirations that we look up to in order to be inspired and motivated in our endeavours. In this entry, I will reflect and share to you the people who inspire me and keep me going in this journey. I know I cannot spit everything and everyone in here. These are some of my models and their contribution to my life thus far: 

My Models and Mentors

1. My Mother - She is my foundation and my inspiration in my 24 years of existence in this world. I do not know if what I will be doing without her.

• She encourages me every single moment in my life.
• She was there in all of my failures.
• She taught me the values in life.
• She is the reason why I keep going in my struggles in work and studies.
• She is there to understand and guide me always.

2. My Mommy Chu- Unlike my other aunts and uncles, she is so consistent with the help that she gave to me. From my financial difficulties studying college and master's degree to the inspiration, care and guidance that she gave me. She inspires me to help your family members even if you are also in a struggle. 

3. Dr. John Anthony Romagos- He is my uncle and my boss right now as the Dean of the College of Arts in Sciences. He was my mentor in journalism way back in elementary. My experiences in journalism career in my student life were the reason why I took up Ba Mass Communications and why I wanted to become a journalist. He also has given me inspirations on how life is hard and on how to defeat the giants in my life.

4. Dick Guiller Delfin- He is a colleague but more on a brother to me. He is my mentor in my debate career. He was the reason why I fell in love with debate. And I guess, he will also mentor me in my law career in the future, hopefully.

5. To ALL Filipinos who sacrifice their lives for the country. They are my models and inspiration whenever I got tired in serving the people. My life purpose is not for fame but on what will be the legacy that I could bring to society. They are the ones who motivated me to keep going.

The type of role model I want to be for others.

1. Motivation. As their role model and mentor, I want myself to have a big impact on their lives. One of the good things to have a good impact on one's life is to motivate themselves. A motivator that even if what big and many struggles that life may bring, we can overcome it. A motivator that encourages them not to stop, just rest. A motivator that will be stuck in their mind that life is full of beauty and we just need to appreciate it. A motivator that we need to seek for God's guidance and we need to serve the people.

2. Inspiration. Personally, you cannot be a good motivator if you will not be an inspiration. I want them to inspire not just by words but also by deeds. An inspiration that lookup by the people that are humble, committed, and serving without counting any costs.

3. Teacher. As a model and mentor, I wanted to look me as one of the greatest teachers they ever had. A teacher who will teach them values in life, hard work, and determination. A teacher who always there for them whenever they need especially to the needed days in their life. 

How I will incorporate models and mentors in my profession? (as an educator)

In our broadcasting class, I incorporated models and mentors by having a broadcasting activity on how to deliver your piece or how to read a piece in radio broadcasting. First, I advised my students to look for their idols in Philippine Broadcasting and imitate or observe how they broadcast news story. After, they broadcast their pieces in the class. This motivation of looking for their idols helped them to easily deliver the pieces in the class.

Who will be my education mentor? What would my ideal education mentor be like?

Honestly, in my three years of teaching, I do not have an education mentor. What would be my ideal mentor be like? Well, it is a standard that I've written above when I see myself as a model or mentor soon. I would like to be a motivator, inspiration and a teacher.

12 Commandments of Teaching Professionalism

Teachers are one of the best people in the world. They are the builders of the future generation where they impart their own knowledge to future individuals in society. Teaching is a noble profession. However, what might be the essential things that teachers must possess in order to teach their students effectively? 

As an instructor, I listed twelve of the hundreds of characteristics that a teacher must have. These are the following: 

1. Passion. Based on my observation, not ALL teachers are passionate about what they are doing. Even my colleagues will talk about just the income and the benefits that they will gain in order to be successful in life. The main focus of a good and effective teacher is a passion that leads to the commitment to what we do. This is a kind of teacher that every student needs. 

2. Parent to Students. It is not only that we love what we do. However, it is also important to be the second parent of the students. It means loving them and looking forward to making everything for the good of their welfare. 

3. Mastery of Subject/ Course. As the person who will deliver another mind, ideas, and perceptions to the students, the teacher must be knowledgeable of what they discussed. In higher education, one of the adversary cultures that institutions practice is that some of the instructors will teach courses that they are not familiar with or experts with. Teachers must know the lessons and should have mastery on it in order to craft effective strategies, techniques and assessments to the students. 

4. Understand the Purpose. I find it necessary for us to know our purpose as teachers. Teaching is not a profession, but a vocation to those people who are willing to sacrifice time, effort, and even money just to deliver good quality education to the students. Understanding our purpose is focusing on our end goal every academic year. With this, we can have mindsets of protecting the welfare of our students. 

5. Willingness to Change. As what the famous statement goes, we need to unlearn ourselves in order to learn. As instructors, we are not as perfect as we portray ourselves to be with our students. With this, we may have a lot of downfalls, disappointments, and failures as an instructor, however, we need to change for the better. This not only ends with this, but we also need to change to be suitable for our working environment- a much mature environment.

6. Don’t Quit! As an instructor, my experience doesn’t end in teaching or instruction only. I am also a job order in our office, a janitor during Brigada, a dancer or singer in some events, master of ceremonies or host on certain occasions, extensionist, researcher, and organizers. In other words, there are so much to work in the academe. Your works will not end, in fact, there are a lot of conflicting works and schedules plus your preparation for your class. With this, we should never quit even if we are overwork and even if our salary could not define our work. We shall never quit. And focus on your end goal that this is a vocation of sacrificing to serve the people. 

7. See Yourself! As the necessity to evaluate our daily life, teachers must also evaluate themselves in their everyday class performances. Reflect on the good and bad things that you’ve done at the end of the day and try to cope up and do better. 

8. Organize things. It is actually a given fact that teachers have a lot of documents in their office tables. Organize these documents well. Organize your instructional materials. And Organize your works because it doesn’t end up with instruction. 

9. Struggle to Improve. This is actually a constant struggle of a teacher. Every day is a struggle to be better. The best thing that we have is that our work is not boring. It is not an everyday cycle. There are actually a lot of unexpected challenges that we need to face every single day. And we just need to make that struggle a challenge to be better. 

10.  Enough ego. Teachers must have enough ego to survive on the hard days. There are also times that you are feeling humiliated with your boss. There are times that you will have disrespectful students. Be strong enough to face them. Face them with high value with yourself. 

11.  Humility. It may be shocking to have all the number of tens in our career in teaching. Too much of it will actually destroy ourselves. As a teacher, learn and always be humble. Be humble with your knowledge, your educational attainment, and your skills. Remember that humility is next to Godliness. 

12. Collab! Collab! Collab! No man is an island. So does in the academe. You need to work collaboratively with your colleagues such as doing researches, extensions, productions, and crafting assessments or strategies in your different courses. It doesn’t end there, you need to do collaborative works with your students in order for them to know your work ethics and to see you as their role model. 

These are the commandments that a teacher must possess to become effective in the vocation of teaching. What are yours?

Efficiency and Commitment

"The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires."

This is the famous statement that could inspire each one of us in the field of academics and students who are aspiring to become the moulder of our society.

This module talks about effective teaching. How can we be effective with our teaching? Do our strategies and techniques of imparting knowledge works? What are the necessary things to be reminded to give good quality education?

This reading by Smitte (2003) gives me personal insights. Based on my observation, most of our students in BA Communications are unprepared. It is always been a struggle for me for the past three years in adjusting how can I deliver the lessons in a most effective way for our students. I am also not that effective in crafting strategies in teaching because I am not an education graduate. However, doing my best to have it. This module is the answer to my problem. 

I realized that effective faculty is one of the most important factors in having successful programs. According to Boylan & Borham (1998), eight out of 20 identified factors is in connection with teaching pedagogy. As an instructor, we should not be limited with our learnings and we need to read books or study post-graduate studies in order to mould ourselves and we could impart more knowledge to our students. 

Moreover, we also need to create activities and teach our students independent. I actually agree based on my experience that encouragement is not enough and frequent feedback to our students is essential. You need to be creative in making your classroom a good learning environment.

As an instructor, it all started to us. We are the compass to the direction of our students. We need to be passionate enough with our work. We need to motivate them. It will boost their self-esteem. However, for our beloved students, please be reminded that we don't need to rely on everything to our teachers. This learning process is a team process that everyone must work into. No teacher can motivate a student when the latter won't participate in the effort.

At the end of the day, we will all be successful if we will be committed. A commitment that we shall dedicate for our community as a whole. For my colleagues, we can just be a GREAT teacher if we will use the principles of teaching. 

Apply not just theorize

Our knowledge will be useless if we will not use it.

This is how I justify my knowledge on the Behavioral Theories that I’ve learned in this module.
Personally, I hated psychology nor I believe that there is an essence of this thing in society.
However, with the understanding of this psychology topic, I can now give additional inputs on
how I will deliver this knowledge in imparting knowledge with my students.

This module gives me insights that understanding behaviourism is essential in the teaching-
learning process. I still remember last semester in our Life and Works of Rizal, a certain group of
students reported our lesson in a mediocre style- they just laugh as if they are just joking around,
not good presentation, and most of the time read their notes without understanding fully the
lesson. With this kind of behaviour, I gave them punishments by giving hardline questions,
giving them words that could challenge them, and giving them the whole one and half hours
standing in front of the class while having a shotgun recitation. After that day, I realized that these
students are not the same as active as before. I realized, maybe I acted too harsh for them.
However, for me, there is no reason for them to be mad at me because I’m just doing my best.

The understanding of behaviourism as I will apply this in my teaching these upcoming days of
classes could help me craft techniques and strategies for my students to have fun at the same
time, gain more knowledge with interactions. This module taught me that we need to understand
the behaviour of our students and could give modification techniques such as reward, proper feedback, praise, non- punitive discipline and positive reinforcements.

Behaviourism does not end in the school, we could also use this understanding to our community
especially to our family. As a professional youth, we need to be role models for the kids.
Behaviourism tells us that if the way kids saw our attitudes, emotions, and how we handle different
situations, they could probably adapt it. According to Heyman & Slep (2002), children who witness
their abusive and violent parents are likely will become just like them.

This knowledge of behaviourism is important to acknowledge the things that we need to solve and
try to understand these circumstances. My point here is, learning these theories won’t just end by
reading these stuff, understanding these stuff, making articles for compliance, but it must end with
an application to create a better atmosphere and more effective environment. So don’t just theorize,
apply it!