One
of the senior courses that pre-service teachers are required to take is AEE 412
also known as “Methods of Teaching Agriculture.” During this class, students
are able to prepare lesson plans and teach to practice their classroom
management and work on their teaching skills. During the course of this class,
I will be reflecting on how my lessons went to help better me as a teacher.
Enjoy!
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I am going to tell you a secret…. Are you ready?
Not all your lesson plans are going to go
the way you think.
WHAT?!?! Weird I know right?
You plan, think of every little detail of the lesson, and then when it is your
time in the classroom, a kid comes left field and could potentially throw you
off your game for the entire rest of your class period.
My Ag Ed family, THIS is what
happened to me during my lab on Wednesday.
This week’s lab assignment was
to create a lab with a problem solving approach for our students. I decided to
do a lab that was based on soil run off, our soil texture, and practice using
the Soil Texture Triangle. I included a lab to get the students thinking about
the different soil textures that were out there and they were even allowed to
create their own soil texture! So using granola, cornstarch, and flour, they created
their own soil texture and then try to find it on the triangle. Lots of fun,
right? Yet after my lab concluded I still felt that my lab was sub-par to what
it could have been.
When the lab began, I had them
do several exercises using the Soil Texture Triangle just to get their minds in
gear for the lab. We did role playing where students were a farmer and others
were soil researcher and they had to help each other out to find out what type
of soil the farmer had. The class did great with the exercises even though
there was a lot of excitement in the room and lots of questions we kept
trudging through!
When it was time for the lab
portion, I was really proud of myself for chunking out the directions and
waiting for all the students to be engaged and listening. They were able to
make their own soil textures and through a trial and error process figure out
what exactly it was! It was a great learning experience for me and even the
students who were participating. It all turns around to asking the RIGHT
questions to promote the conversation and problem solving approach.
So what is down the line for me
in my next lab?
- - Breaking away from the
facilitator role into the teacher role (tone down the excitement just a
little!)
- - Actively improving my
delivery of instructions and questioning
- - Continuing finding more
ways to address all three modalities of learner in my classroom!
Overall, these labs keep
getting better for me becoming a “Master Teacher”! With the help of my cohort
and my professors I am on my way to improving these skills for the future!
Till next time Ag Ed Fam!
Olivia, it was great to be apart of your class and hear how you took some of the ideas we talked about in class and implement them into your lesson. Don't tone down the energy too much just make sure you are being genuine with your energy. Be bubbly Olivia, who we all love! Cannot wait to see you teach again!
ReplyDeleteOlivia, it is a blast to be a part of your lessons! You bring such passion and excitement to the classroom. You can brighten anyone's day. Your lab was very engaging and I would so consider doing something like this with my students. It was a great way to allow for students to observe different soil textures. Don't fret about always not having your ducks in a row. After you got into your groove the second half of your lesson went smooth sailing. Keep up the great work!
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