Even before covid19, nttchp students are already doing blended learning so my classes and i did not have much trouble with the complete change in the TL platform. what shocked me was teaching the teachers outside my regular classes at nttchp. to quote the Academic Head of the Philippine Judicial Academy (PHILJA), Justice Delilah Magtolis who passed away just this 16 June, "there are judges-professors in the academy who do not like to record their lectures, because they do not like to speak without real students." these are jurors who are the pillars of legal education in the philippines. PHILJA's additional thrust now is how to immortalize these lectures by these educators. challenge to hped: pwedeng thesis na rin ito: immortalize your most esteemed mentors, record their lectures while you still can, something like Annely's plan to record the biography of the founding director of CIM's Community Health Program in Paknaan, Mandaue City.
As a student, I don't have a problem at NTTC because there usually is a syllabus that is followed and all the requirements/reports/assignments are posted so you know what to expect. We have blended learning so we still have face-to face. My challenge during this pandemic is as a teacher in the CM with the shift to the complete online learning. We are so used to the face-to-face format that we don't have a syllabus for our Radio courses with 5-22 students. We now have to produce the necessary materials like the syllabus to help our students learn on their own. Some of us also attended a crash course of the new LMS (Canvas), a challenge to someone not that "techie".
I haven't even started teaching formally yet, but whatever picture I had in my mind about teaching in school will have to be deferred for now. Peer tutoring has introduced me to the possibility that I might have to start my teaching career from an online platform.
I wanted to be in NTTCHP so that I could become a proper health professions educator. All of the experiences I have gone through, so far, have given me an entirely different set of competencies that I believe would be useful in pursuing the kind of teaching that is different from what I intended to be. For that, I am grateful and more motivated to pursue teaching and learning.