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!
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ _ _ _ _
Flashback to my senior year of
high school where my Ag teacher laid out three different types of mystery meat
and we had to guess what was what. There was the famous Spam, overly enjoyed
hotdogs, and the salty Scrapple. We as a group had to determine what was what
even if that meant that we had to…eat it. Now I know that you may be thinking
(YUCK!), but the one thing that I took away from the lab is the hands on experience
and the amount of fun I had with my group.
After learning about teaching
strategies, I learned that my teacher tricked me into learning by getting me
engaged in the class and up out of my seat for an Inquiry Based Lab. This lab
is a little different in the fact that students form their own questions and
create procedures to answer the overarching question of the lab. In my lab for
my IBI, I wanted the students to see just how much their lifestyle was
effecting the planet as well as how many trees it would take to offset the
amount of carbon dioxide that they produced due to their lifestyle.
PROS:
I pushed the students into
connecting their math and science classes into one lesson to get the overall
picture of measuring trees
I had students work together as
a group and I only allowed them THREE post-it notes! These symbolized the
amount of questions they were allowed to ask the teacher
The students received hints
AFTER they gave me a general idea about what their procedures were to figure
out an formula for the trees
CONS:
I frustrated the “students” I
think in the beginning of class because they were unaware of the terminology
that I was using. Due to the fact that I will be teaching this to a class that
has had this verbiage before, they will be more likely to understand the material
than my colleagues in the lab.
Preparation. For this lab, you
need to be really up to date on the information that you want to teach to
answer any students questions and to help them out when they have clarification
questions.
Overall, my “students” grasped
the concept fairly well and they understood where I was going with the class. I
think that in the real classroom students will enjoy it because it not only
includes them getting out of their seats, but it allows them to go…OUTSIDE! Hopefully
more information is to come when I get in the classroom but that is all for
now!
Thanks for reading Ag Ed Fam!
Liv, I really liked how you limited them there questions with using only 3 post it notes. I am stealing that idea. I also enjoyed reading your personal connection to the story. I also found it frustrating to teach to students who did not know the "background" information, but it is a positive you recognized how it will be different in a classroom setting.
ReplyDelete1. Giggling at "#labchat" - that should have been a thing a while ago
ReplyDelete2. It was so fun getting to be in your lab, or having you in our lab :)
3. Your question limitation was a great way get students to ask each other. With more classroom conditioning like Mr. Clark talked about, this would have definitely gone much smoother
4. Don't be too afraid of student frustration, that just means our gears were turning! Keep seeking out ways to help to continue to motivate students and encourage them to own their learning experiences
5. Keep being awesome!
Liv, Wow, this sounds like such a solid lesson. Not only are you integrating science and math, but also forcing students to connect this to their own lives! This is a unique LIFE LESSON to teach the students about the lifestyle choices, very neat. I am so intrigued as to how this will work at WB Saul, once the students have the necessary previous knowledge etc. I am looking forward to hearing about your IBI adventures in Philly. Great job!
ReplyDeleteIf you can still remember that exact lesson to this day, that right there proves that it was effective and left an impression on you! During your lab, the sticky-note idea was frustrating to me, but it is a solid idea that I plan to use sometime in the future! Being in your lab, I agree that this would have went better if we had background knowledge on the subject and our frustrations were mostly because most of us did not know the terminology! I think your lab went well and you did a good job of integrating SCIENCE into your lab...which I did not do! Good job liv, it was a pleasure having lab with you!
ReplyDeleteMike