Life Knowledge Lab Reflection #aee412 #psuaged16

Teaching the lesson at Saul!

On Monday October 26^th, I visited W.B. Saul High School to teach a lab based on the Life Knowledge lesson plans that they have online at FFA.org. The lesson that I taught to the class was titled “Defining Career Success,” and by the end of my lesson it was clear that the students knew what that was. The class dynamic was completely different from what I was used to, but you know what it was a good thing!

So let’s talk about the lesson itself!

The objectives were as follows:

1) Identify skills necessary to create career success

2) Explain why effectively contributing to society is important to career success

3) Define career success

Pretty self-explanatory right?

Students working hard on the definition!

As I started the lesson, I wanted to show the students that what they were doing in the classroom now impacted their future in more ways than they knew. When the class first started I had them think of a question that has been around for students since the beginning of time. That question was, “What do you want to be when you grow up and how can you get there?” What a tough question right? As the students thought about the question and shared out with the class their dreams of what they wanted to be, I then opened up the door to talking about what they think would make a good employee based on what job they had. This really got them thinking about skills and people that have demonstrated that to them in their lives and what good role models they do have!

After having an in class discussion, we discussed the roles that employees and employers play in their community and how it can build up their understanding of where they are working and how their job impacts where they are. The last objective, for defining career success, I paired up the groups and had them create their own definition of what career success is and then share it with the class until I gave them the true definition of what it was.

Ms. Turrentine and myself with the class
mascots!

Overall the lesson went great with my 10^th graders and they learned a lot and actually recapped what we learned for me on the board which proved that they did learn a lot. After I completed the lesson I wanted to get their feedback about what they thought and where I could improve myself for next semester. I gave each of them a notecard and asked if they could write down notes for the following; what I did GOOD, BAD, and where can IMPROVE for next semester. They gave back some awesome feedback and I was happy that I asked because it validated how I felt. Funny note as well, they noticed that I was nervous and apprehensive when delivering my lesson plan. Students are like sharks and they can smell fear in a teacher so it was interesting seeing that they actually noticed it when I thought I hid it well.

Overall, I am super excited to teach at W.B. Saul in the spring. These students are pushing me to be a better teacher and person every day and I am excited to see what it will be like in the end of my student teaching experience.

That’s all for now Ag Ed Fam Jam!