The Demo

★THE                           DEMO

 

 

       

 

Making of LP

 

         The making of our lesson plan was relatively painless compared to the rest of our final demo journey. After we got our book approved, we made a Google document so that we could work on it simultaneously. Truthfully, I was really worried about the lesson plan and the whole demo in general. I was afraid that I would be taking the bulk of writing it. But surprisingly, they were relatively more cooperative when we were making our lesson plan. This isn't the first time I would be making a literature based lesson plan so I guess that's also part of why it was a little easier this time. We had a template that we used for both our practice lesson plan and our real first draft. All that was left to do was fill it out.

 

         The hardest part of the lesson plan was the objectives; the expressive objectives to be more specific. It was something that I didn’t have practice enough in my EDR class last semester. We had to learn through trial and error. Thank goodness, Teacher JM was very kind and checked our lesson plan and the succeeding revisions. I wouldn’t say that I have the art of writing a literature based lesson plan down. But I think that I got better at it compared to last sem, and that is a good thing.

 

         As for the unlocking of words, we decided to keep it to a maximum of three since most of the words were understandable through context clues or pictures in the book. For the manner of telling the story, we didn’t really have much of an idea to make it different. We were just planning to tell it normally in the form of a powerpoint presentation. But when we found out that Teacher Yvette was expecting something aside from the normal story telling, we had rack our brains for a way to make it fun. Also, I didn’t think that our story is fun enough so we had to think of a gimmick. I got the idea of covering some words and letting the guess it because we had to cover the words "United States" and replace it with "Philippines".

 

         We decided to add a musical activity in our lesson since it is an area we had an advantage since both Iya and I have ukuleles and I could sing. Cess was the one to find the Barney song that we used and I tried to find the chords to it by ear. Initially it was me and Cess who were working on the contents. It was a nice arrangement for me because I worked on the creative aspects like the activities while she filled in the mechanics and materials needed. There were days when I couldn’t show up for consultation and it was just Cess and Iya. It was on those days that Iya would put in her creative input and I was happy with that. She put in the replacement activity which was later on  I was tempted to disappear for a while just to let them have a chance on working on the lesson plan but I didn’t want to be left out on the development.

 

         During the last consultation, Cess wasn’t around and so we, Iya and I, were left to delegate the tasks which was okay with me since Cess worked on the parts of the LP which I didn’t like. I don’t mind doing a few more of the tasks. And by this time, I believe that our work was more evenly distributed.

 

         I would say that the key to making  a collaborative lesson plan is communication. With the technology we have today, there is no excuse not to use them to our advantage. I am very thankful that things like Google Docs exist so we all have access to it in real time and can chat while editing it in the same page.

 

Making of materials

 

         We had two days of making the materials. We worked on them at Iya's condo in Cubao since it is the nearest  to the places where we could buy materials. Cess brought the swimming pool while Iya and I bought materials at National Bookstore. I brought all my art materials and we made quite a mess at Iya's house. I find the making of materials to be the most fun part of preparing for a demo.

 

         After we fashioned the fishing poles out of balloon sticks, yarn, masking tape and magnets, I started working on the drawings that we will be using for the unlocking, while Cess wrote the lyrics of the Barney song on the cartolina and Iya designed the name tags.

 

         On our second day, I wasn’t able to go to school as I was already down with the flu. I was panicking because there was a high chance that my voice would go out completely and that's the last thing that I would want to happen that week since we had a music activity (not to mention that my band also had a gig that weekend). Even so, Cess still went to Iya's house as I worked on the other materials assigned to me at home.

 

          As I worked at home, I still called them on the phone to check what was happening. I repeated the list of materials and who is doing what materials just so we were sure that nothing is missed. This is why I was so stressed the following day when I found out that our materials weren't done yet. There was a miscommunication between Cess and Iya as to who would be making the powerpoint so I ended up converting image files and making the presentation myself that morning. There were many more problems with our materials that it would be wasteful to type them down now because I still want to bang my head on the wall whenever I remember it. And I thought that the materials were already done the night before.

 

         Lesson? Make sure that you already have your materials at least two days prior and run through them the night before. Also, leave your materials somewhere near just for safety so that you wouldn’t have to go back to Cubao in case you forget to bring them the next morning.

 

Demo

 

         On the day of the demo, I was physically sick and mentally stressed because of the materials. On top of that, I was ready for the demo at eight thirty in the morning but it was already twelve thirty and one of my groupmates wasn’t around yet. To make things worse, it turned out that they didn’t pick the parts that they would do yet. I was automatically assigned to the musical activity but I was still waiting for them to tell me who was doing what aside from that so that I would be doing the part that was left since I thought all of us knew the lesson plan well enough to be able to execute it easily. And I was wrong.

 

         Cess did the unlocking and I did the story telling. Iya was supposed to facilitate the charades by default since she didn’t say what part she wanted but right before that activity I asked her if she knew what she was going to do, she said no. I didn’t have time to be baffled as to why she didn’t know what to do when all of us had access to the lesson plan and the said lesson plan was supposedly a collaborative effort, so I just took over instead of risking the demo to be messed up as I could see that she was clearly clueless and nervous.

 

          If I have to be brutally honest, I would admit that I kind of felt bad for her and about myself since I took over her part. I really hate stealing anyone's part, but at that moment I thought that it had to be done. Also, even as I felt sorry, I still wanted to hurl her out the window at the same time, on the grounds of "What in oblation's name is wrong with you, girl?" Considering that I wasn’t even able to choose groupmates since both of them were absent the day we chose and everyone else had their own groups, I felt a little short-changed.

 

         Aside from me realizing again why I dislike group works and people in general, I believe that the demo didn’t go so bad. It was our first time to teach in a kinder classroom. I did demos before but it was in the higher grades and in Iclip where there the class size was really small so doing a demo in UPIS K-2 was something new for me. I believe that I connect well with kids, better than I connect with adults.

 

         They say that students usually cry in their demo in this course and I understand now. I was about to cry out of sheer frustration and physical exhaustion that day but then again, Iya beat me to the part. It would be too much if two out of three of us cried that day so I tried to breathe deeply and calm myself. Plus I didn’t really like the idea of letting the kids see me with smeared mascara and eyeliner. I was wearing light contact lenses that day so if my mascara ran, I would look totally right out of a Japanese horror movie. The kids might get scared and I wouldn't be so "ganda" anymore in Avielle's eyes.

 

         Once again, I was thankful f Teacher JM's presence because he distracted the kids to count the lights and look away from the crying teacher Iya. I wouldn't know what to do. I was beginning to panic again as well. Our other classmates noticed that and told me to calm down.

 

         Towards the end of our demo, it was more relaxed and calm. I was able to talk to some of the students as they decorated their dolls. Most of the boys wanted to be soldiers while the girls mostly wanted to be doctors, designers or ballerinas. Again, this is the best part of the demo; talking with kids. Another kid told me "Teacher, you are my favorite." Just like that, I wasn’t so stressed and murderous anymore.

 

         After the demo, during our processing of the experience, we found out that Iya was stressed because she didn’t know if she wanted to be  a teacher or not. That was aggravated by our topic which was "What I Want To Be".  I just hugged her when I realized that.

 

         Although a part of me still wanted to brain her with the bench we were sitting on, I do empathize with her. I myself came from another college and I couldn’t finish my first course because I couldn’t bring myself to love it. I stopped schooling and tried to work. Luckily I realized what I wanted to do with my life and even after experiencing I was more sure that I wanted to teach. Even Cess went through that same path and we understand that it is really a rough time when you're not sure of what you want.

 

         To sum it all up, it was the worst demo experience I've ever had. Even so, I am thankful because I learned a lot from it. I learned the meaning of what beauty queens call 'grace under pressure'. I'm just glad that the kids didn’t notice that I was stressed beyond measure that day. I just hope that my future demos --as I am sure there would be more to come-- would be better