Page 3 : First week at the Manuel G. Araullo High School.

Before we move, we must first understand where we stand.

On October 16th, 2024, we were finally deployed to Manuel G. Araullo High School, a public secondary school in Manila. I was assigned with Mr. Ricardo B. Banigon, Jr. as my mentor teacher. He teaches both mathematics and statistics, and is responsible for two sections: 10-Newton and 10-Descartes. I’ll be teaching statistics to these two classes. Before starting my practice teaching, I spent the first week observing, which has given me a good understanding of the classroom dynamics and teaching methods. I'm looking forward to starting my teaching experience here!

Before observing the class, I had a discussion with Mr. Banigon, my mentor teacher, about the curriculum and my schedule. He explained that each class session lasts for 45 minutes, and the same topic will be repeated for both sections each day. He also sent me a Lesson Plan sample to guide my own planning. Here is what the Lesson Plan here looks like:

And here is the schedule of Mr. Banigon's mathematics and statistics classes :

• Mathematics (Monday to Friday)
• 08.30am - 09.15am (10-Newton)
• 09.15am - 10.00am (10-Descartes)
• Statistics (Tuesday to Thursday)
• 12.30pm - 13.15pm (10-Newton)
• 13.15pm - 14.00pm (10-Descartes)

(For your information, both 10-Newton and 10-Descartes are a special science classes that include three additional subjects which are statistics, research, and electronics. So, they have a subject for a regular mathematics and a specifically focused on statistics.)

We also discussed the material I will be teaching and the dates for my demo and final demo. Here is the schedule that Mr. Banigon gave me for the demos:

Subject : Statistics

Content : Measures of Central Tendency

• October 24th, 2024: Demo - Mean of Ungrouped Data
• October 29th, 2024: Demo - The Weighted Mean
• October 30th, 2024: Demo - Mean of Grouped Data
• November 5th, 2024: Final Demo - Median of Ungrouped Data

So, I will be teaching 4 times during my practice teaching here.

I observed the classes for three days, from October 16th, 2024, to October 18th 2024.

During my observations, I noted that each class begins with a prayer and a greeting. Mr. Banigon then leads a review session for the previous lesson in a Q&A form with PowerPoint slides. Students who answer correctly are awarded with an achievement badges, which they can collect. At the end of the semester, these badges will contribute points to their grades.

On my first day of observing, Mr. Banigon explained the Frequency Distribution Table as the main topic with a PowerPoint slides, whiteboard, and a marker. The following day, he explained the Extended Frequency Distribution Table with only whiteboard and its marker. After presenting the main topics, he assigned homework on the first day. However, on the second day, since there was still some time left, he allowed students to complete the assignment in class and submit it before the session ended.

Since Mr. Banigon also teaches mathematics, I had the opportunity to observe his mathematics class on the third day. My notes for this session were quite similar to those I had written for the statistics classes.

From these observations, I can say that the classes here are relatively straightforward for one subtopic, as they last only 45 minutes everyday. Most of the time is spent with the teacher explaining the topics. In other words, it can be said that the curriculum here is teacher-centered. Different from the curriculum in Indonesia, the classes usually last a maximum of 3 sessions of 40 or 45 minutes for two or three subtopics in a scheduled day only and there are usually a lot of activities for students to do, either it is an individual activities or a group activities, making it a student-centered.

By the way, other than me, there are also a student teacher that were assigned with Mr. Banigon. Her name is Analie Tison Barquillo, a student from Eulogio "Amang" Rodriguez Institute of Science and Technology (EARIST). On my third day, we had the opportunity to check the students' answers from the assignment given in the previous day's statistics class.

And that's all about my first week at Araullo High School! You might be wondering why it was only three days. Well, we officially started our deployment on Wednesday, October 16th, instead of Monday, because classes were suspended on October 14th and 15th due to the Asia-Pacific Ministerial Conference for Disaster Risk Reduction held in Manila.

It’s been a exciting journey so far! I’m excited for what’s to come. See you soon on my next post! <3