Last October 4, our university started the limited face-to-face classes for laboratory and technical subjects. We can only cater 20-25 students per laboratory class or if there is a bigger open space we can have a large class.
I scheduled my students for face to face classes. We started last week and the feeling of meeting my virtual students for the first time was somewhat exciting. However, we faced some problems in the laboratory because the computers were not used for a long time, some became sluggish and some were not functioning well. Aside from the technical issues, the students seem to be new with the environment, they were not used with computers in the laboratory and with the software that we are using too. We spent at most 30 minutes of fixing issues before we were settled. My subject for the class is database and we tried laboratory demonstrations. I can see that my students were struggling.
Yesterday, we met again, I gave them advanced lab exercises since our subject is Advance Databases. 5 minutes passed, 10 minutes passed, 20 minutes passed I cannot see anyone solving any of the problems. Those were already discussed during online classes, I even made video tutorials, I also gave them hand-outs but I am really wondering why they were unable to answer it. 10 minutes before the time, I told them to submit their papers. At the back of my mind, I said to myself that I cannot let this students go home discouraged because they were not able to answer any lab question. What I did was go back to the basic query. I gave problems, we answered the problem and they tried the database queries in the software we were using so that they can see the output. I extended for another hour just to see to it that their trip in school became worthwhile that they were able to try different queries. After the giving of problems and solutions I tested their learning through an exercise which is just relative to the previously given problems. Gladly, most of them answered at least one problem.
This made me realize that this students lack the skills in creating and analyzing queries. I need to realign the lessons to ensure that we can really do the expected outcomes for the subject. I should not worry if we will not cover all the subject coverage, what I should focus is for them to master the basic skills in databases and for them to apply it in their projects and future jobs. I know this would not be easy, but hopefully, after the semester these students will tell themselves that I am capable enough to do database creation and manipulation.
I hear the same stories with my colleagues. They really had a hard time. Face to face classes is really different from virtual class. During virtual classes, we are unsure if those students were really focusing on the lessons. I am actually happy that we had this face to face classes so that we can really assist and assess our students properly.
10.18.2022
~MizLhaine
Dagdag burden talaga yung nagpandemia Maam Lhaine ano? Apektadong-apektado talaga yung pag-aaral nung mga studyante tas yung nag f2f na, nahihirapan na din mga studyante kasi adjustment na naman, same goes with the teachers.