Taking over the Reins...Slowly!

My second week in The Valley has proven to be just as cold (or colder at times), but things in the classroom are starting to warm up!  I have had an exciting and eventful week that is for sure!

I began this week with mid-terms.  Students are given two days for each final; Monday and Tuesday were elective finals (this included all agriculture classes).  The students are then given a day break, and then Thursday and Friday were designated to Science finals.  Mid-terms will continue until next Friday. 

The mid-terms in all agriculture classes were designed for students to have both Monday and Tuesday to complete the exam.  Needless to say, Monday was a VERY quiet day.  I guess I should have enjoyed the silence, but by fourth period I thought I was going to go insane!  Every exam was required to have a reading section as well as an essay question in addition to the multiple choice, true/false and short answer questions.  On Monday, most students were able to complete majority of the exam, typically having only the essay to complete on Tuesday.  

Even though Monday was a pretty quiet day, the evening proved to be quite the experience!  Bradford County has an active County FFA Chapter that meets once a month.  The County Chapter is made up of four schools, Canton, Troy, North East Bradford, and Athens.  Typically meetings start at 7 and rotate between the different high schools.  For this month’s meeting we met at North East Bradford (an hour away from Athens) and the teachers were to meet at 6 in order to judge the SAE record books for the county.  This was a definitely a “this is it” moment for me!  Throughout my high school career I sent my SAE record book to many county record book contests.  This week, I switched sides of the whole competition!  No longer was my book being judged, but instead I was doing the judging!  Knowing that I have dairy experience, I was quickly passed the stack of Dairy Herd record books (that were all from Troy).  I was nervous to have to compare the traditional record book to the AET record books, but luckily, every book that was entered in the Dairy Herd category were completed using AET.  This was another learning curve!  After years of working to keep my own records, I never imagined it would be so hard to score a stack of books.  Every student showcased a unique quality in their book, making it hard to determine the final score.

We also had a guest speaker at the meeting from Pee Jay’s Fresh Fruit.  He came to share information about their Fresh Florida Strawberry sale.  North East and Canton both participated in this sale last year, and they claimed that it was a successful fundraiser with quality fruit.  After sitting through the presentation, Mr. Steinfelt decided to go forward with this fundraiser this year.  To gain experience and fulfill an assignment, the fundraiser became a project for me to work on.  The turnaround time has to be very quick though, as orders are due February 17, with a final add on date of February 24.  During the presentation we were introduced to a new option available when selling through Pee Jay’s: online ordering.  This option allows for customers to purchase online with a credit card.  To utilize this option, you have to set up a website through Pee Jay’s by adding the information to your school and sale.  Throughout the rest of the week I worked with Mr. Steinfelt to get the fundraiser approved by the school and getting the website set up and ready to go live upon approval.  I am really excited to see how this fundraiser works out!  I am particularly excited to see how the online sales turn out!  This is a new experience for everyone involved, so it should be a great learning opportunity!

On Tuesday we were back to mid-terms.   It worked really nice to have two teachers, because while students finished up their exams I was able to stay with those still working, while finished students were able to get into the shop and greenhouse with Mr. Steinfelt.  During prep periods and some of lunch, we began grading mid-terms from classes that were finished.  Over all, Tuesday was a pretty quiet day.  I did really enjoy getting to hear from the entire Penn State 2014 Student Teacher Cohort, though!  It is really nice to know that even though we are spread all over the state, our Ag Ed team does everything they can to make us feel connected!  

Wednesday, this was it!  They day I had been anxiously awaiting for over a week!  I finally got to teach a room full of MY students!  After some change of plans, my FFA/SAE class was the class I picked up first.  I have a class of ten students from 10-12 grade, 5 of which are FFA officers.  This class is designed to give the students an opportunity to work on their SAE project as well as planning FFA events.  To begin, I am facilitating a Leadership unit of instruction that focuses around FFA Week.   I had been hearing lots of ideas from the officer team for FFA Week and I was completely excited to work to expand on those thoughts in order to organize a successful week.  I talked through my ideas for the class with Mr. Steinfelt, and asked what events were typically done in the past.  After doing so, I decided that I wanted to change up my original lesson plan a bit!  The task I assigned my students on the first day (after taking care of introductions) was to create a purpose statement for what they wanted to accomplish from FFA Week.  My plan in doing this was to get the students to think about WHY we should even bother with FFA Week.  I wanted them to realize it was much more than a week to just wear blue and gold and do things with the chapter.  I think that they started to realize that was where I was going, but the whole “purpose statement” thing really tripped them up.  I continued to ask questions and they really did start thinking deeper, but the short 39 minutes came to a quick end, leaving almost 24 hours for me to reflect and plan a new approach!  I talked through the class with Mr. Steinfelt afterwards, and discussed what had happened.  I told him I was honestly pleased with how the class went, but that I knew I needed to work on the purpose statement with them more on Thursday.  We then talked about how I was just a little bit nervous, which was a complete shock to me!  I already know every student in this class after attending National Convention and Mid-Winter Convention, so I figured I would be comfortable in front of them!  Turns out I was wrong!  It was nothing that I feel really affected the lesson, but you could tell I was a little nervous to finally be in front of a class!

As I continued to reflect on the class from Wednesday, I kept researching good ways to teach purpose statements.  After searching for a long period of time, it finally hit me!  SMART Goals!  Every kid that has ever been to an FFA Conference should know what a SMART Goal is!  I changed some things around, developed a worksheet, and I was good to go!  We began class on Thursday by writing the purpose statement we had from the day before.  I had a student read it aloud, and then let the class discuss whether or not they were happy with it.  Then, I broke out the worksheets!  I asked who had heard of SMART Goals, and the entire class had.  We went through what each letter stood for, and they nailed it.  Then, we broke up in groups and they were each to create a SMART Goal for FFA Week.  We then shared with the class, combined the different goals created, and wa-la!  We have a very SMART goal for Athens FFA Week!  We ended the class by discussing why goals are important.  My students now understand why it is important to begin with the end in mind!! 

Today, to finish out the week, the students were given three tasks to complete by the end of class:

1.       Update SAE record books

2.       Prepare 2013 record books for the state competition

 

Not all of the students had books that were being sent on to the state competition, so I thought the best approach to take would be to have students begin to work as a group as they finished up with their record books.  Each student took a different amount of time, so the group working on FFA week grew as the period progressed.  At first the kids thought that there was going to be less structure since I was designating the class as a “work” period.  I made sure to circulate throughout the room and answer questions about record books and help facilitate discussion about FFA Week.  Overall, I have some learning to do, that is for sure, but I was pretty happy with the amount of work accomplished in the short 39 minutes!

As I look into next week, I will continue planning FFA Week with my FFA/SAE class.  We will designate a chair for each event, and then they will do what is necessary to plan their event.  They will give updates to the class so that they can get feedback and ideas as they work through the planning stages.  I will also begin to look at leadership and show the importance of working to obtain and improve those skills in order to have an even more successful FFA Week.  I will also pick up my Introduction to Ag class with a unit on soil and water conservation.  I am a little nervous for this class of 22 high school freshman, but excited, too!  We will begin looking at conservation and its importance in the future or our world.  I have a lot of activities planned for this, and I am really excited to see how the kids respond!  

This is something I have been working to remind myself of this week!  I want my students to know that I am here to help them succeed.  In fact, I WANT them to succeed!  I know that throughout my education it sometimes seemed as though the teachers or professors were setting me up for failure.  It is my goal to help my students reach their full potential.  I believe that to achieve this, I need to continually remind them that I believe they can do great things.  It is not enough to tell students they can do better than what they are doing right now.  Sometimes all they hear is that they are not doing good enough.  They need to hear that you have faith in them, and that we are here to help them do great things!  As I progress through this journey, I will strive to actively show my students how much I do believe in them!