JOURNAL 2 - Grade 9 AP Ekonomiks @ Rm. 136

GRADE 9 ECONOMICS @ Rm. 136 24 August 2018 - Journal Entry #2 THE CLASSROOM. The room assigned for teaching AP 9 (Ekonomiks) is room 136. I’ve actually been to the room multiple times before for observation and demo teaching sessions in some of my undergraduate EDSSE courses.

In front, we have the white board with the topleft corner designated for the attendance question. There’s also a television screen on the wall placed above the white board, which I’ve never actually seen be used in all the times I’ve observed classes in that room. The teachers of the classes I’ve observed that were held there always opted to use the projector for their slide presentations. The wall on the left side of the room is designated for the written reports of the students’ Balitaan, a group task in which students are assigned to research a timely news article, connect its relevance to Economics and society, and report it in class. The wall at the back of the room also serves as a bulletin board of sorts where some creative outputs of the students are also posted. At the right side of the room are the windows, with the room being located at the southeast corner of the third-floor, near Katipunan and the street between UPIS and the College of Home Economics, where a new building is being constructed.

In my past experiences of observing and demo teaching in Rm. 136, the one thing I’ve always noticed was the poor quality of the acoustics in the room. Perhaps it’s also because of the high ceiling of the room? I’m not quite sure. But there seems to be a lot of space. This could be an advantage: students have room for activities that will require them to move around. For this particular class, there were about 36 students present.

On the other hand, it poses a challenge for the teacher in terms of voice volume and modulation. I remember demo teaching and knowing that I was using the maximum volume I could produce, but in the end my professor still posed it as a point for improvement. But then again, I also remember observing, with my mind drifting away from what the teacher was saying – despite my being able to hear her. In other words, something about that room’s acoustics kind of makes the voice of the teacher easier to fade into the background, perhaps being drowned by either the small conversations

students were having in addition to the hum of the multiple electric fans placed around the room.

To be completely honest, I don’t think that the room in particularl is in its best form to be the best tool for a teacher – well, for me at least. But alas, we take what we can get and the best thing to do now is to make the most out of what we have inside (as well as outside) the classroom.

THE TEACHING So far, I was able to observe Teacher Fraul teach two different topics to the three grade 9 sections she was handling. And during each class, for each section, one thing that particularly amazed me was Teacher Fraul’s time management skills in class. I took note of the time allotment for every part of her lessons, including the waiting time for the students to respond to her question for recitation or for them to finish an activity. I’ve also noticed how she tries to mix individual activities with group activities that allow for an informal debate.

During her lesson on Microeconomics and Macroeconomics, she had a group game/quiz setup wherein she presented scenarios and students were tasked to identify whether they fall under Micro- or Macroeconomics. She also wanted them to defend their reasoning before revealing the “right” answer. As the lesson went on I realized how she was trying to illicit a debate among the groups – always asking if any other group had a different answer, so they can view and explore the points of each side. At the end of the activity, she was able to aid the students in realizing that scenarios may be seen in from both a micro- and a macroeconomic perspective – which, she explaines, is the case in reality and that we must not limit ourselves to a particular point of view.

This ‘debate’ theme was present again in her next lesson: Is Economics a science? She divided the class into two and posed the question with one side defending yes, it is a science and the othe¸ no. There were some mixed results among the three sections but Teacher Fraul ended with a conclusion similar to the point she made last time: that both points of view – “hard” natural sciences are just as important as the “soft” or social sciences and one should not be seen as superior or inferior to the other.

Seeing Teacher Fraul deliver these lessons, and the responses she got from students brought me a sense of joy and excitement. I think overall those particular strategies for the particular lessons were quite effective because they were topics that indeed needed the involvement of other people to bounce off ideas with. The students learn from each other as well as the teacher. The only challenge though is the time it takes to prepare and facilitate these mini-/informal debates, especially with young, impressionable teenagers who might take some of the arguments personally (like what happened in one section where a student cried).

Moreover, as a social studies teacher I believe that talking about and analyzing these multi-faceted concepts, and their application not just in Economics but in society is also important. It allows the students to practice their critical thinking and reasoning skills as well as see its relevance in life. Hopefully there’d still be opportunities for moments like this in the latter lessons in Econ. Even when we’re at the point where there are lots of formulas or graphs on demand, supply, market structures, and all that.

After all, what would be the point in teaching those numbers and graphs if we’re unable to make the students realize their importance. ☺