Buzzed about Bees {Teach} on the Block! #week10

Wow. 10 weeks down and 5 more to go. Can you say crazy?! Being in Philadelphia with my students has been one crazy journey and I love that there is still more time to be creative and have a great time with them!

Without further ado, let’s break down this week’s pros and cons in each class shall we?

Pros: This week, I was pushed to get out of my comfort zone and research things that I had never had any interest in at Penn State.

Animals Science: In animal science this week, I have challenged my students to the max by having a test and a project due in one week… (seems easy right? Not for these kids!). My students kept telling me that I was being “unfair” or challenging them when they had other work to do in other classes, but I stuck to my guns this week and told them honestly: My class matters too. A lot of students were baffled when I didn’t move assignments or I didn’t bend my will for them, but it was nice to see that when I stuck to my guns, my students did awesome work even though they were all in a time crunch! Although I was tough on them this week, I made sure to reiterate to them that they CAN do it, they just have to be willing to put the hard work in.

Environmental Science: Outside work is tough on any
person; however, it is a new sort of “dying” when it comes to making my senior work in our local CSA (community garden). Seriously, you would think that I was asking my students to jump through hoops and juggle fire when it came to working outside. What was the first thing that came to my mind then you may ask: An amazing teaching opportunity. At Saul, your major that you choose in agriculture becomes your job. You are expected to show up on time and do your work no matter what. If you are not there, it is like you are skipping work. It is a great concept that I designed to help shape my class and make sure that my students did the work that was asked of them.

Beginning every class when I knew we had jobs to do outside, there was a list of things that needed done and there were preselected groups that were already determined. You show up on time, you wear your work boots, and you get the job accomplished in the time asked of you. Easy concept. The first day that we did this, I simply watched to see what they would do, and if it was effective. Turns out, it was! Yes, there were still the reminders that they had to stay on task but for the most part my seniors did great and I enjoyed working with them!

One last Pro: This week, I have started working with some of my senior boys on a bee project. Now, if you know me, I am not a huge fan of bees, AT ALL. However, this was some of my student’s passions and they wanted MY help (out of all people though, come on kids!) So, I dug up some old bee suits, we went out and we looked at the hives that we already had in hopes of creating our own in the future. My student’s passions in agriculture made me get out of my comfort zone and I am so glad that I did!

Cons: As for the cons this week, nothing too dramatic happened. My students have been working as hard as they can even though spring break is right around the corner! Maybe there will be some event that will happen next week, but for now, it is all good here!

Overall, this week has taught me a lot. I need to get out of my zone more and meet my students needs because I am here for them! Although next week we only have one day (sorry #psuaged16 cohort!) I am excited for Monday and the awesome time we are going to have tomorrow!

Thanks for reading Ag Ed Fam!  

The 6th ACES #studentteaching

Agricultural Cooperation Establishes Success. What a mouthful, but what a powerful event that impacts the lives of our high school students through agriculture leadership activities and learning.

This year was my 6^th year attending this conference, but it was different to me in a HUGE way. This year, instead of being a student in the blue jacket or being a facilitator for the workshops, I was an advisor of 43 amazing Walter Biddle Saul students.

The theme this year was “Past, Present, and Future. Telling Our Story.” What a great theme to educate our students about FFA, agriculture, and leadership.

We started off the week arriving at the Harrisburg Sheraton in a sea of Blue and Gold jackets with the hope of a great weekend. Even though it was Valentines weekend, my students were excited to be there and meet new people.

While my students were in the workshop, I had a great opportunity to learn about drones and GPS systems that we can use on our agriculture fields. Although it was a very interesting workshop, I was anxious to get back to my students and see how their days were going. As I snuck out, I took a couple of pictures of their experiences in the workshops which are down below!

As the day concluded and the students enjoyed an awesome dinner followed by a dance, I had to step up my advisor game and scope out the hallway after curfew. Luckily I was with my fellow student teachers as we scoped out the halls and let students know that curfew meant lights out. It was funny to reminisce about when I was a student and I was on the other side of the door. Folks, it was ironic that I was the enforcer and not the instigator!

The following day as ACES, we all concluded with a community service workshop and wrote letters to kids and students at Penn State for THON this weekend.

Overall, this trip was an incredible experience and I am so happy that I was able to spend time with my students outside of the classroom. I feel as a teacher we forget that our students have personalities outside of the classroom and they can be kinda fun to hang out with in a relaxed setting. Being a part of the transition from student to facilitator to student teacher/advisor has been a great way for me to see how I have grown at the same conference that I have always loved!

I look forward to many more journeys as an Ag teacher and I look forward to SLLC next month!

Thank you for reading!

What’s Science got to do, got to do with it? #psuaged16

I have an extreme love for science and hands on activities. Being able to apply what you have learned from a classroom setting is truly awesome connecting all of the dots together. Classroom to connection to chemistry though really threw me for a whorl! Although I appreciate all of the sciences, Chemistry was never my strong suit. However, being in Mr. Foley’s 11^th grade Chemistry class opened my eyes to what could have been better whenever I was in the seats of those students.

For my Penn State curriculum, I have to complete an assignment which makes me observe another science oriented classroom. Not only would this be a learning observation from different teaching standpoints, but also see how students interact in a different learning environment outside of the agriculture classroom.

So Chemistry. What a whirl wind. I can still hear my old high school teacher making punny jokes like, “Chem IS try so don’t give up!” However, Mr. Foley’s class was different. He was a fantastic teacher to watch because he let the students ask questions, come to conclusions, and work things out on their own instead of spoon feeding them the answers. On top of that, he made Chemistry interesting by having the students create models that he proudly hung up all over his classroom.

When examining his schedule and classroom management techniques, it was interesting to see that he relied on the same kind of teaching styles I do! Starting each of his class periods, he has a Bellwork, a review about what happened the previous day, some sort of lecture, and then a hands on activity to connect the dots. Although his schedule was mastered through many years of teaching in practice, it is nice to see that I am on the right road of following in his footsteps on becoming that “Master Teacher.”

Overall, this was an experience! It’s nice that with a student teaching internship like this one, my coursework includes me talking with teachers outside of the agriculture department and truly getting to know the school around me! In conclusion, science has a lot to do with it!

Final Lab Write Up! #reflection #psuaged16

Well, today is the day. The day that I give my final presentation about how I have grown as an educator and how I am ready to go out and conquer the world of agriculture education. It is hard to believe how time has passed and now I am here. 

This blog post is meant to be a reflection about my time in AEE 412 and some of my biggest takeaways. Instead of listing everything, I will be giving you my top five reasons why I feel as if I am prepared for student teaching. 

1) I have learned how to incorporate variability in my lessons to make my students enjoy through different aspects of my teaching. Without the thoughtful process of Rosenshine and Furst's Characteristics of Teaching Effectiveness, I don't know where I would be! 

2) I have grown as a teacher and a student! The hardest part about being an agriculture teacher, in my opinion, is the content knowledge. Throughout this semester I have been a student trying to create content to be a teacher. I know that next year will also be a learning process, but I am up for the challenge.

3) I have grown to appreciate my connections that I have in the agriculture education world. As I have been creating lesson plans and getting ready for student teaching, it has been difficult in understanding where I can find information. Teachers have been so supportive in the pursuit of making my find materials as easy as possible.

4) Delivery of my presentation has grown to where I fully talk and listen to myself as a teacher. I have grown to appreciate the knowledge and skills of how to "walk, act, and talk" like a teacher and can apply that next semester as well! 

5) Feedback. This has been a crucial element in my growth and understanding. I have been able to take feedback and apply it in my next lessons in a positive manner. For that, I am so thankful for that opportunity. 

 If you would like to watch a short sneak of my lab video, please take a look below! 

Next time you read this blog, it will be about student teaching and where I am at right now. 

Talk to you later Ag Ed Fam! 

Micro-Teaching and Parli Pro #psuaged16

I now call this blog to order! Welcome to the only blog of my micro-teaching experience from Bald Eagle High School! I had the opportunity to teach an FFA Leadership class on Parliamentary Procedures last week.

If you haven’t heard about micro-teaching, it is awesome program that gives preservice teachers a chance can go out into the “field” and get some experience teaching in a different classroom environment than where they will be student teaching in the spring. It is the chance to create and implement your own lesson plans in the classroom and see if they work. I was under the supervision of Mr. Todd Biddle teaching to his class of 13 students. Let’s jump in and see what happened!

Day One:

- I opened up the class with an introduction of Parliamentary Procedures with a PowerPoint and guided notes.

- Emphasizing different aspects of Parli Pro and making them relatable to their experiences really helps their understanding

- Repeat after me, is not as childish as they think! They learned a lot of the terminology and how to say motions this way!

Day Two:

- I needed to get their energy up, so we did a recap and then proceeded to play a GAME!

            - If your students need debate help, I played a game where they had to debate about a topic positively or negatively and include the three parts of a beginning statement, a middle statement, and then the conclusion! PLUS: if you make it into a competition the students get really into it!

- Talking was a little bit of an issue today, but the students were just really excited!

- I need to be aware of the amount of time! We all got into the class that the bell rang and surprised us all!

Day Three:

- TEST TIME! The students took a test about what they learned. I also allowed them to use Roberts Rules of Order and their notes from the week because it was more important for me to have them understand the subject matter than memorize it!

- Debate Time: The students had the opportunity to debate about two things that Mr. Biddle wanted to talk about regarding Farm Show and their Secret Santa Party that they have every year

- Getting the students talking was a little hard, but once I put motions on the floor that the students didn’t like/like they got really into it!

So what did I learn over these three days?

- My energy and passion for what I was teaching did not go unnoticed! The students were engaged most of the time while they were there and liked the games that we played

- Preparation! As a student, it is hard to understand what prep goes into each lesson and how I need to be on top of my game all the time!

- Being Flexible! There were some instances where the lesson before me wasn’t wrapped up and I had to switch the students to think in different gears to what we were learning next.

- Just have fun! When you are relaxed and having fun, your students will too! They pick up on bad energy and feed off of that. Just relax and have fun!

 

 Overall, I had a blast teaching and learning about where I am about and how I am progressing for the spring semester at Walter Biddle Saul High School!

Thanks for reading Ag Ed Fam!

Let's Teach IBI! #labchat #aee412

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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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!  

Problem Based Lab: Soil Texture #psuaged16 #labchat

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! 

Questions make a lesson: Lab Number 3 #labchat #psuaged16

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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Before you begin reading this blog, I want to throw a question out there and I want you to reflect and think about it. Okay are you ready?

What makes your classroom interesting?

Tough question right?

This week in class, our lab was to create an interest approach that would get the students excited about the lesson that they were going to learn that day. The sky was the limit with any creative approach that you wanted to do, but it had to pertain to the lesson you were going to teach. For my lesson I wanted to communicate the importance of agriculture in other countries and I choose to use a scenario where my students had a plot of land, a budget, and then they had to feed a family of whatever number was on their paper.

When beginning the lesson, I thought that I had clear instructions about what the assignment was and knowledge that it was going to lead into the next part of the lesson. What I didn’t do accurately was ask the questions to my students about why this was important and how it pertained to the lesson. That is when I thought, questions make or break your lesson.

Questioning your students forms a knowledge base about why we are doing what we doing in the first place. Without them, students will think that we are jumping from activity to activity not fully understanding that all of these objectives correlate to one another. I need to do a better job in asking the RIGHT questions to help build them up for the rest of the lesson.

After my students completed their plot of land and they gave an explanation to the class, I read over the objectives and we then were able to build our lesson. Overall, my biggest take a way’s were that I need to ask clear questions and of course slow down again in my delivery of my presentation. I have a clear mind for next week and I look forward to more labs to come!

I speak like an Italian: Lab Numero 2 #labchat #psuaged16

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!

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ _ _ _ _

The first day of school brings back so many great memories. Reuniting with old friends, back to school shopping, looking your best to impress, and of course the new classes that you are able to take! It is an opportunity to start out the first day as one of the BEST days as a student.

In our lab this week, we had to demonstrate what we would do on the very first day of school with the new students! I learned a lot about my teaching style when I want to show my energy and excited but the down fall is..... I speak like my mother. Yes, that day has come where I can watch myself and see the similarities of the women that has been an inspiration in my life.

I speak like an Italian.
 

From a young age, I knew that my family was special. When I was able to see them, they were loud, exciting, and of course just loved spending time with each other. Growing up in a family lifestyle like that, it is surprising to see how much I have brought that into my teaching. Watching myself walk around the room, being loud and obnoxious, even flailing my arms during some points. After watching my lab, I have learned that I can be exciting BUT I need to slow down and stop using hand signals constantly. It led to be more of a distraction than an aid in the class.

I need to SLOW down with explanations
When explaining directions to the students about the activities we were going to do, some were hesitant and unsure with what was actually happening in the class. After the second time they did the activity, they were ready to go and confident with what they are doing. They suggested that I slow down with the directions and explanations for better understanding about what was going to happen in the class. I took this matter seriously and I want to try and map out a "script" of delivering a message across to my students. I believe that if I give direction, explain/demonstrate an action, and then repeat the directions, students will have a better understanding of what is going on in the class.

Future Expectations
I enjoy these labs because they help me focus on growing as a learner and a teacher. So, where do we go from here? I want to practice delivering directions and messages to others on a day to day basis. Whether my peers need help or they have a question I want to be slow and concise so that they understand. I also want to bring out my Italian flare in a more centered energy that does not have me bouncing all over the room like a cannoli! I need to direct that energy towards my students for their learning and growth.

Overall, I had a great time delivering this lab to my students! I look forward to perfecting my teaching strategies as the labs move forward.
 

Knot Your Average Lesson #aee412 #psuaged16

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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Class Lesson: How to Tie a Bowline Knot

Students: 6

Objectives:

• Background Information on Bowline Knots
• Effective Strategies how to tie the Knot using a Mnemonic
• Successfully tie the Bowline Knot

For this lesson, I had an end goal for my students to learn how to tie a bowline knot. When looking at this task I thought that it would be too easy for my students to complete the task and I would have a TON of time left. Turns out, I was wrong. With only 10 minutes for instruction and 5 minutes for the evaluation, there was a lot to do. I created a simple PowerPoint as well as included pictures step by step on how to tie this knot.

During the class session there were some hiccups on how to show the students how to tie it as well as trying to give them all individual attention without losing them to side conversations. My classroom management while I was with individual students was lacking during this lesson as well. After all of the students had free time to practice tying their knots, I went around individually watching them complete the task. This part I also wish I can go back on because I wanted to bring the group all back together to go over it one more time.

Overall, it was a great class and I learned a lot as a teacher when doing a demo. I look forward to the rest of the semester in this class and working on my teaching strategies.