Snap Shots for Teaching! #AEE412 #psuaged16

With large amounts of reading assignments in various classes, reflecting on what I read is vital for the understanding of the subject matter. By blogging each week about the various readings, I will be able to think, reflect, and the share with my peers! Hang in there with me as the reading assignments come, just know that I am making it short and concise for you instead of your reading them all! Enjoy!

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

So instead of me listing out every little detail that I read with these assignment, I will be giving you 5 main points or snap shots that I took out of the reading! So watch your eyes, the snap shots are coming your way!

Snap Shot Number One:

The most important thing to establish the first week of school is CONSISTENCY.

This couldn’t be truer for us first time teachers just entering the work world. To be an effective teacher, you have to set up boundaries and expectations for your students so that they form into habits. By starting these early, you can set up your classroom for success, rather than chaos!

Snap Shot Number Two:

Fantasy, Survival, Mastery, Impact

No, this is not a plot to a movie or book rather a map of the four stages of teaching. Depending on where you are in these four stages describes what type of teacher you are. So for example, in the “Fantasy” stage you are wanting to relate and be friends with your students rather than a guiding influence rather than in the “Impact” stage you aren’t fully reaching the full potential of getting to know your students. You were hired to impact, inspire, and TEACH these kids. Finding a balance in these four stages is exactly where you want to be in my opinion.

Snap Shot Number Three:

Put your passion into your teaching

Showing your students that you are passionate and excited about what you are teaching will inspire them to try their best and push themselves (at least that’s what I would hope would happen!). We need to invest time into preparing our lessons and making them relatable to our students to see the maximum growth in the classroom!

Snap Shot Number Four:

TEACH SMARTER NOT HARDER

A huge common thread in all of the articles this week were striving for teachers to be prepared and ready to teach in the classroom. Prepare your lesson plans, be organized, and most importantly have fun.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Hope you enjoyed! There will be more to come with the readings! 

 

 Stay Golden and enjoy these last few days of summer weather!

 

 

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!

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

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.

Student Farmers at Saul! #SAE

Stephanie Pleasant (right), Baiyinah (left),
Gizmo the Chinchilla (middle)

Today I had a “blast from the past” moment when observing two students from Walter Biddle Saul High School’s SAE projects. If you are unaware about what an SAE is, it is a Supervised Agricultural Experience where students can gain exposure to different agricultural fields in the work industry. I had the opportunity to meet with rising juniors Baiyinah Cunningham and Stephanie Pleasant about their project as student farmers at the school.

To be a student farmer at W.B. Saul, the agriculture teachers ask students to work through the school year and the summer as a paid intern. They have to clock in and clock out like any other job and they also document their chores and challenges they face in their SAE book every Wednesday with the teachers that supervise them. Both of these girls work together every day with the small animals (mice, rats, guinea pigs) and dogs at the high school cleaning and taking care of them. After we sat down and discussed their projects, the girls showed me around the building where they take care of the animals. To be honest, I had a teacher moment seeing the pride on their faces because of the amount of work that they had put into the place!

Ms. Turrentine working with the rabbits with Baiyinah

After the tour and the follow up with my cooperating teacher, Ms. Turrentine about the student farmer positions she made it clear that she wanted the students to gain different “real world” experiences while they were taking care of the animals. If problems arose along the way she would of course step in and help, but she made sure to challenge the students to use critical thinking when dealing with these issues when they occurred.

Baiyinah and Stephanie stated it well when they said “By having this job, we have learned how to deal with real life problems and also work on our time management when cleaning and taking care of the animals.” These girls are on the right path to having an awesome On-Farm Placement SAE project and are working their way into the animal industry.

6 Reasons Why You Should Travel Alone Once

I consider myself pretty fortunate when it comes to traveling and seeing the world. I have been on several group trips, a couple mission trips, and an independent research adventure. Each of these experiences have helped me learn about myself and the world around me. It wasn’t until I got out of my comfort zone ad went on a trip to Belize by myself where I truly got to enjoy a country on my own and do what I wanted to do. After my time there I truly believe everyone should travel alone once in their lives and here is why:
 

Volunteered with locals building
a green house.

1. Amazing People and Stories

One of the greatest things about traveling alone are the people that you meet. When you travel with a partner or a group, you lose out on the opportunity to force yourself into meeting new people. When you travel alone, I noticed that other people traveling alone will flock to you because they are sharing the same experience as you and it is less intimidating. I can’t count the number of amazing people and friends that I made on my trip that I still am keeping in contact with.


2. Great Food

I love to try new foods and eat at the hole in the wall places that all the locals enjoy. Every time I tried a new place to eat, I always asked the locals what was the best thing on the menu. I had great experiences with this and was even invited by some locals to come and try food at their house for dinner!

3. You can do what you want

When have you gone on a trip where there were activities that you disliked and all you wanted to do was just leave? Well when traveling alone the only person you have to deal with is yourself. It allows you to be flexible and choose what exactly you want your experience in another country to be like.

I went and visited a farmers
 market one morning

4. You grow to be independent

You are your own decision maker. By traveling alone you will become more assertive because you are forced to make the decisions on your own. Once you start practicing, it becomes easier for everyday life. It also makes you realize that when you are traveling alone, there will be problems along the way where you will be forced to step up and make another decision best for you!

5. Get out of your comfort zone

I was able to learn a lot about myself and the attitude that I had towards my life. I reorganized my priorities and was able to grow personally which has made me grow in to the person I am today. I know that this experience can be rough for some people but in the end I was able to say that I traveled on my own and did my own thing.  

6. Work on checking things off your bucket list

As cliché as it sounds, I was able to check a lot of things off my bucket list that I had on there when I was traveling. I made sure to visit all of the tourist sights, yet still intermingle with the people that I had made friends with. Overall, the bucket list is a powerful tool that will make you want to cross things off yourself because you navigated through the system on your own.

Can you BELIZE It?!: That's a WRAP! #research

During my stay and study in Belize, I will be focusing on my research on youth development in San Jose Succotz. I have been asked to conduct research on this area to see if this community could create a youth development program and to have it be sustainable for the years to come! I will be documenting my travels to show you the work I am doing and the adventures that I have had!

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Wow. It feels like yesterday that I just came to this beautiful country to begin my research in Succotz. The weeks have flown by and so has the research! Although it is hard for me to write everything down in these last few weeks that have happened, I am going to continue with the trend of only picking FOUR things to talk about. Instead of things that I learned, I am going to pick the locations that I have been to!

1. National Youth 4-H Center in Belmopan, Belize

Talk about an amazing opportunity for young students in Belize! This youth development school is focused primarily on students that are in between the ages of 14- 17 years old that have dropped out of school. Although it isn't a typical school that focuses primarily on core subjects (writing, reading and math) it focuses on the students first! They take this opportunity to train them on a personal level and in leadership and professional development. They also use the 4-H model and have the students complete an SOE (Supervised Occupational Experience) and then the students have to choose a path between Agriculture of Tourism Development. These students are on the right path to success here at this school!

2. House of Culture in Benque, Belize
This "house" is a museum of sorts that explains the history behind local knowledge in Belize and how Belize got started. Ms. Ingrid Cuncil invited me to come down to several events, including going to a new archeological site that was recently discovered and is being excavated. They determined at the site that it was a village of a mayor and his towns people that served as a "check point" for travelers going to Xuantinich. Interesting stories and structures were seen all day!

3. San Pedro, Belize
Researchers can have fun too! I took this opportunity to go to San Pedro one weekend with a couple of friends that
 I met! While we were there, I was able to snorkeling at a beautiful coral reef and through Shark Ray Alley! Now, I am typically not afraid of sharks but man, these ones weren't afraid to get up close! The dive leader even scooped up a stingray and we got to hold it. It was an awesome time!








4. Succotz Primary School, Belize

Just yesterday I had the opportunity to talk with some 4th graders about 4-H and agriculture! They were a chatty and goofy bunch, but the information they provided me with for me research was great! I wanted to ask them if they knew anything about agriculture, who in their family was involved, and if they were involved in any after school activities. Surprisingly there were more answers about the agriculture questions than the after school activites which is just what I needed to hear for the research! Overall they tired me out, but it was a great day!

These last few weeks have flown by and I am sad to be leaving this Saturday. I hope that one day I can return to this amazing country and help the people in it! For now, I have to finish my research and return safely to the State!

Can you BELIZE it?!: Week Two's Top Four Adventures! #top4 #research

During my stay and study in Belize, I will be focusing on my research on youth development in San Jose Succotz. I have been asked to conduct research on this area to see if this community could create a youth development program and to have it be sustainable for the years to come! I will be documenting my travels to show you the work I am doing and the adventures that I have had!

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

 

 

With week two down, it is amazing to see how fast my stay here is going. I have had the opportunity this week to experience once in a lifetime adventures and want to do a different spin on this weeks blog. Instead of writing about EVERYTHING that I have done, I will be picking the top 4 experiences that I have had this week! They aren't in any certain order, but each adventure was a blast!

 

 

1. Great People= Great Projects

This week, I decided to take a different approach at meeting the people in the village of Succotz. I had a list of people that I had to meet so I decided to make my presence known by going to their areas of work or houses and personally getting to know them. It was there where I found out about two great organizations led by two empowering women. The first group was the local youth group with the FCD (Friends for Conservation and Development) led by Nidia Panthi, which focused on building a green house for the primary school and then the Women's Group led by Ms. Olivia Pat who focused on empowering women in the community. Both of these amazing women worked hard after their jobs and school to better the community where they lived.

 

2. Learn about where you are

I learned that it is imperative to get to know the area and the history where you are staying to help you better understand the culture and traditions in whichever country you are staying. You can opportunities to do awesome things! On Wednesday of this week, the House of Culture in Benque organized a day of learning and fun to the community because it was International Museum Day! When I went there, I learned about the marimba instrument, the different traditions Belize celebrates, and I even learned how to write my name in Mayan! If you are studying abroad or even passing through a different place, learn about their history and take a leap to ask questions!

 

3. Transportation Systems

This week, I left the host family "nest" and traveled around Belize by myself using the taxi system. As weird as this sounds, I was actually nervous to go by myself. A lot of the taxis here are not like the regular ones you would imagine in NYC. They are regular cars that are set apart because they have green license plates. You also share the taxi with other people that need rides so you can be in a car by yourself or you crammed in with 4 other people! The great thing though about the taxi system here is that it is so cheap! $3 Belizean to get me over to the next town ($1.50 U.S.) is fine by me crammed or not!
 

 

4. Iguanas are better than Parrots!

As crazy as this is, yes that is a real live iguana on my shoulder (don't try this at home kids!). I went to the Iguana Conservation Project in San Ignacio to romp around with some iguanas! These little guys were very tame and friendly which helped a lot because I was a little out of my element! Overall, with help and guidance from the handlers there at the project, I was able to learn a lot about the iguanas and the history to them!
 

This week was a great one and I am looking forward to the new experiences that I am going to have this week! By the end of this next week, the green house for the FCD should be completed, I will attempt to sew a placemat with the Women's group, and I will be meeting more friends along the way!

 

Can you BELIZE it?!: Week One in Succotz #research

During my stay and study in Belize, I will be focusing on my research on youth development in San Jose Succotz. I have been asked to conduct research on this area to see if this community could create a youth development program and to have it be sustainable for the years to come! I will be documenting my travels to show you the work I am doing and the adventures that I have had!

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Hola and Welcome to Belize!  A country full of great food and great people. When I arrived on Monday to Belize City I had no idea what to expect, and didn't know anyone at all. That is where I met my very first friend who welcomed me into the country and drove me all the way to San Jose Succotz. Now, Belize is a little different than America in multiple ways including the road system. They have one central highway that takes you to any village, town, or city and of course there are no road signs or speed limits. As we flew down the highway and the sun was setting, I truly got to see Belize in a special light as Joshua was telling me about the history and different stories of Belize. I was very fortunate in the fact that Joshua was training to be a tour guide which made him very knowledgeable about Belize and it's history.

After a 2.5 hour ride, we finally arrived in Succotz outside of the town San Ignacio. It is a small village with some of the most welcoming people that I have met. We pulled into the driveway where my host family lived and they all rushed outside to see me. The family that I am staying with has two daughters, Fatima and Leeyah, and then their parents Vanessa and Daniel. When I unloaded all of my belongings, we went down the road to go visit their parents and grandparents that night. Surprisingly to me, they all lived in the same village because they all have lived there their entire lives. My family lives across the United States and I only get to see them once a year so it was awesome how strong their family bond was after meeting their entire family.

As the week started, I began my research by first visiting the agricultural high school called Mopan Technical in Benque. One of the previous graduating students at Penn State (Kate Basset) had student taught there, and she was able to start a couple projects at the school to help them out. After discussing with them about what Kate did and about their current projects at the school, we were able to talk about implementing a youth program that some of their students might enjoy. I had multiple conversations with several teachers, students, and even the principal, to get a good understanding about what they wanted and how we are to accomplish those goals.
After two days at Mopan Technical, I was able to go sight seeing with my host family as well as Dr. Penados's family around different areas in Belize. Some of the places I visited actually reminded me of Pennsylvania in the fact that they had an Amish and Mennonite community that made dairy products in the area. They had several American foods that included two of my favorites, pizza and ice cream (staple food groups for any college student!). After that, I was able to pick blueberries at a local farm and even got to visit the coast to see a museum and then go to the beach!

Week one has been great and I haven't melted from the heat just yet, thank goodness! Stay tuned to my next blog about riding the bus system (by myself yikes!), visiting the National Belize 4-H Center, and talking with the locals about their agriculture knowledge!