First Week in the North!

It has been a frigid week in “The Valley!”  I made my trek to school in -6 degree temperatures on Tuesday morning with no delays or cancellations!  As soon as I got to school Mr. Steinfelt and I went to the office to tell the staff that I was going to be here for the long haul.  I was then handed a staff badge as well as a faculty parking pass.  As ridiculous as this may sound, it was when that parking pass was handed to me that it finally sunk in.  For the past six years I have had to display a student parking pass in my car in order to park on the school campus.  I am not a student anymore! A new chapter has begun.

Athens School District has had five or six snow days already this year, which is pretty typical.  They do not, however, build snow days into their schedule, so the seniors are starting to get a little impatient as their graduation date keeps moving back!  The snow days have pushed the schedule back, meaning I am delayed in picking up classes.  I was originally scheduled to pick up the two sections of Horticulture as my first class, however, with the schedule shift, I will be delayed by at least a week.  For this week, that meant that I observed classes and helped out whenever and wherever appropriate.  

On Tuesday, I began working with a student who is completing and independent study project to collect food and supplies needed at the Ronald McDonald House in Danville.  The student worked to develop a proposal for getting the entire school involved in the efforts.  The deadline set for the event was February 14, so therefore it was not possible to include this in our FFA Week plans.  Details are being finalized with the principal today, so the student should be able to go forward with everything next week.

Wednesday was another day of observation.  The highlight of the day was helping freshman work on applying for the Give the Gift of Blue program offered by National FFA during my PM Advisory.  I thought this was going to be a simple task, but it turns out high school freshman still believe that 250 words is a lot to write!  I had three students working on jacket applications, and one senior working on the National FFA Scholarship.  Majority of the period was spent getting everyone set up with their AgCN account.  I was very thankful for the training we had last week from Mr. Kevin Keith!  We then realized that certain information would not save when you logged out and logged back on, so the students shut down their computers with about four minutes to go until the dismissal bell.  In those four minutes I lost any cool points I had from being the new student teacher.  I let the senior go because we have an open campus, meaning seniors in good standing (no zeros on assignments, no failing grades, no detention, etc.) are allowed to leave the building during lunch, study halls, and advisory periods.  Therefore, she was not required to be there.  The freshman thought that I would then let them go, too.  They tried every excuse, they wanted to go back to their homeroom, they needed to stop at their locker before they went out to catch the bus, yadda, yadda.  They were highly disappointed when I made them stay in the room until the dismissal bell.  They all made it home just fine, too!  No busses or rides were missed, imagine that!

Thursday and Friday were spent on mid-term review.  Each class asked questions and then talked through important information that has been covered throughout the year.  I learned how to run the copier, and all the ins and outs of what times are best to make copies.  I also saw the importance of planning ahead, especially before mid-terms, when every teacher in the building is testing every class within a four day time frame!  

As I look into next week, I will pick up my first class on Wednesday, following mid-term testing on Monday and Tuesday.  I will now start with the FFA/SAE class with a unit on leadership, specifically geared towards FFA Week.  I have 12 students, 5 of which are officers, who will be working towards understanding and developing leadership skills and plan FFA Week.  We will only be in school for three days during FFA Week, so they will be challenged to make those three days really count!  I am really excited to start teaching this group of students!  The snow days did mess up my plan, but with some flexibility it will all work out just fine!  Plus, I hear Monday is supposed to be our coldest day of the winter up here, so that is definitely something to look forward to as well!

And That's a Wrap!

It is hard to believe that four months have gone by so quickly.  As I reflect on the road that I have traveled through those few short months, I begin to see how the pieces really did fit together.  I began the semester feeling overwhelmed by the amount I felt I needed to learn before I was comfortable to walk in front of students.  Now, I feel comfortable knowing that in only a months time I will be able to take responsibility of my students educational experience.  I truly believe that I would not feel prepared without my lab experience.
We have learned to live by John Dewey's Learning by Doing concept.  Throughout the course of the semester, we were allowed to learn what did and did not work for us by actually getting up and teaching.  We were able to take what we had spent class time learning about and apply it.  Personally, I found it completely beneficial to receive both peer feedback as well as instructor feedback.  I was able to take both and then effectively reflecting on my performance. However, I feel that the most beneficial part of lab for me personally was the video recordings of our lessons.  I learned so much more by taking the time to go and watch my video after the fact.  I picked up on the things that I did that may have been a little off, and was able to set standards for myself to improve in those areas, and reevaluate myself upon watching the next weeks video.

Through the experience I have had this semester, I feel that I was given the opportunity and encouragement to grow as an educator.  We started small and built up to working in a classroom with actual students.  I now have confidence that I have developed skills that are needed to take on the responsibility of my future students.  I can say this confidently because I have not merely learned about the techniques, I have had the chance to apply them.  I look forward to taking these experiences with me as I take my next step into the classroom.

Creativity at it's Finest..

This week in lab we took a road trip.....to the Dollar Tree!!

We were given no direction up front other than to be sure to bring a unit plan with us the day of lab.  We knew that we were traveling somewhere to bring out our creative juices, but we had no idea where that would be!

We were each allocated $5, before tax, to find 5 things that would help add to a single unit of instruction.  The unit I brought along was Electricity.  At first I was concerned because I didn't know how to think outside of the box.  I spent the first ten minutes aimlessly walking around just to see what all the Dollar Tree had to offer.  I first picked up a pack of pipe cleaners, thinking my students could practice wiring with those before using actual electrical wire.  I thought this would be a fun, creative thing to bring into the classroom.  However, my attention was then caught by the colored glitter glue.  I really liked the idea of the students practicing before they started wiring with wire, but the pipe cleaners they wouldn't be able to take with them easily.  The glitter glue on the other hand, they would be able to use that to draw on a worksheet where the different wires need connected, and they would be able to take it with them afterwards.  I liked that they would have this example available to go back and refer to, whereas the pipe cleaners would likely be disassembled.

I then went on to pick up a pack of light bulbs and batteries to have for the students when they are learning about an open and closed circuit.  I also picked up an extension cord so that I could demonstrate an open and closed circuit to them.

I was stuck.  I had four items and I didn't know what else to get.  After reviewing my unit plan, I remembered that I was teaching students how to calculate electricity bills.  I picked up a pack of large fake money with intentions of using this to give different students different amounts of money to then determine what appliances they can run that would add up to that total. 

After an hour in the Dollar Tree, I finally felt that I had a few really creative things to bring into my classroom for my students.  I believe that we all had a lot of fun completing this task.  Creativity is important, but it can also break a bank.  It was good to see what all we can get for only a dollar that can be useful in our classroom.

Life Knowledge Lesson

This week I had the opportunity to teach my actual students.  A class filled with freshman who I will be teaching very soon.  I was excited.  I was nervous.  But, I was ready.  We have been working so hard all semester to prepare ourselves for the minute we walk into our class.  I was ready to put everything I have learned to work with students whose learning I am soon to be completely responsible for.  That being said, Thursday may have been a difficult day to do that.

I will be teaching at Athens High School, and for those of you who don't know, that is basically the North Pole of PA.  The Tuesday before Thanksgiving turned into an unexpected short day, thanks to snow, and Wednesday was canceled all together.  That was followed by their Thanksgiving break which ran through Tuesday.  When the students came back Wednesday morning everyone helped pull together the fruit sale delivery and pick up, and Friday the State Officers were scheduled to come.  If you were keeping a tally, that leaves one completely structured day in well over a weeks time, Thursday. 

I walked into first period, Introduction to Agriculture with a room full of non enthused freshman.  This class is held in a Biology classroom that belongs to the other Agriculture teacher, so many of the students made it into the room before I did, big mistake.  As a result, I began to feel rushed, so I breezed through the beginning without truly captivating the students attention.  I wanted to be sure to get to the fun group activity I had for the last half of the class, because I knew I only had a short 39 minutes to get through everything.

I had eight different behaviors of servant leaders, and instead of just lecturing about them, I wanted the students to get into groups and draw pictures to symbolize the behavior.  To do this, I had the class count off by 8's to ensure that everyone was included.  I believe that this worked well once the activity actually got started as well because some students were more into it than others, and if I would have let them pick their groups on their own, I believe that some groups would not have taken the assignment seriously.   As they worked, I walked around to each group to talk through their ideas with them and to ensure they were staying on task.

 After the groups finished I had each group present.  I originally threw this in because it made sense, but after I was in the classroom I realized it was great to get the students up speaking in front of a class.  Some were much more comfortable than others, but I had every student speak.  I think this was a great added experience to the lesson.

After each group finished, we reviewed the 8 behaviors as a class.  I then had the students write on the back of the card that was provided to them as bellwork a complete sentence explaining how they could implement these behaviors into their everyday lives to make themselves better servant leaders.  This then served as their ticket out the door.  As students finished up, I had them put the desks back how they were since I was not going to be in that classroom the following period, and that went right up until the bell.

Overall I think it was a good experience.  I wish I would not have rushed through the beginning and spent more time developing the felt need of the lesson, so that is something I will be working on.  I also plan to be in the room before students enter so that I am better able to be prepared for the lesson.

This experience left me excited to go back.  I realize I still have a lot left to learn, but I truly enjoyed teaching my students.

The Real Deal!

Well, after a three day experience in front of actual students, I can honestly say that I am so incredibly glad I am entering the field that we know as Agricultural Education.  I really enjoyed actual getting out there to put to use everything I have been learning over the past few years. 

That being said, this experience was also a great eye opener for everything that I need to keep in mind once I am actually in front of my students.

I spent my three days teaching the Animal Science class at Central Mountain High School.  I had 27 students ranging from Freshman to Seniors, and I was to spend my three days introducing the students to their rabbit unit.  That being said, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how I could make rabbits sound interesting to high school students.  I spent a day observing the class before I taught, and during that time they were working on cats.  To say the students were not enthused is by far an understatement.  I made it a challenge to myself from that point to get the students excited about what I had to teach them.

Three days is not a lot of time, my biggest struggle was deciding what to teach during those three days, knowing that half of the last day was going to be dedicated to an assessment and a learners satisfaction sheet.  I decided to start the unit off by going over the components of the rabbit industry, followed by the breeds, moving into parts of a rabbit.  From there I planned to spend the second day dedicated to genetics and the punnet square.  I was going to end up my time in the classroom going over proper care of a rabbit, a review, a quiz, and ending with my learner satisfaction sheet.

My learning process began on the first day.  I wasn't but five minutes into the class when I realized I had too much information to cover on just that one day.  I decided that it would be better to thoroughly cover the first two objectives than to rush through them just to get to the third objective.  I learned a lot from this.  First being, it is far better to be over prepared!  There will be some days that you will need that extra information, but other days you will find the kids are more intrigued and ask more questions, therefore taking more time.  With that, I learned that it is better to really dig into a topic, not merely cover the content.  So, take the time to answer those questions.  As a matter of fact, don't just answer them, put a smile on your face while you are doing it, because you are clearly doing your job.  We want to encourage students to think deeper, and that isn't something we can necessarily put a time limit on. 

It was all fine and dandy that I ran out of time on the first day, I successfully taught the students from bell to bell, but now what was I going to do?  Once I have my own classroom, I will have more time to get to all of the content when I get to it.  But with three days, I had to decide what I was going to cut out.  I think that this is something valuable to learn, because, even though I think that I will have a lot more time when I have more than three days to teach my students, the time still will fly.  For that reason, though it is better to have extra planned then not enough, it is still important to be realistic with your planning. 

My second day I planned activities to go over the punnet square.  I went in assuming that majority of the students would have no previous experience with the punnet square, and I was wrong.  I think that it was a good thing though, because the students who had previous experience were able to help the few students who had no experience.

On my final day, we covered the parts, reviewed for the quiz, and then took the quiz.  I only had 25 students on the last day, and 20 of those students passed the quiz with above an 84%.  Of the remaining 5 students, 2 received 76%, 2 earned a 64%, and 1 a 60%.  This also taught me a thing or two.  The first being that it is really hard to quiz after just two and a half days of material, especially if some of your students were out the first two days.  The review was great to get the material to those who may have missed some, but it was not enough.  I was not at the school during the students activities period or lunch or any other time that they may have had available to come talk to me about what they had missed.  This, too is something that will change once I am in a classroom of my own.

As for my satisfaction forms, all of my students were either satisfied or very satisfies, with the exception of one, who was not there the first two days, therefore relaid that they felt that there was a lot to learn in a little time.  Many of the other students thought that there would be a better result if I was able to be there for more time instead of trying to jam everything in to three days.  Overall, however, they liked the variety of activities I brought into the classroom.

I am extremely happy with how this experience went.  There were good points, great points, and things that need to be worked on.  I look forward to taking everything I have learned and putting it to practice!

One last thought to conclude my reflection on this experience:

Inquiry Based Instruction

This was definitely the most challenging lab to date, but then again, that does make sense, seeing as we are nearing the end of the semester!  When I began to think about where to even begin planning, I did not know where to start.  We were first given the rubric that showed the five features and the amount of Learner Self-Direction.  The five features of IBI include: Engagement, Evidence, Explanation, Connection, and Communication. Having the rubric in my hands caused me to see where I was trying to go, but I was still unsure of how to get there. 

The next step in the learning process was taking a field trip to see IBI in action.  I really liked visiting Greenwood to see how Mr. Clark included IBI in his classroom.  The key element to making this trip beneficial, however, was bringing Mr. Clark in for further explanation and questioning the following Friday.  While being in the classroom was nice, there was not much time for Mr. Clark to dedicate to us, seeing as he had students that needed to take precedence.

After all of the instruction, it was time to put the knowledge I had learned to use.  I by no means expected to rock out a perfect lesson with a perfect result.  I knew that this experience was really going to provide a (hopefully) fairly large learning curve.  I had a hard time planning for the lab because I struggled to know just how much I should leave for the students to figure out on their own.  I chose to teach essential nutrients in feed concentrates by providing three feed samples and testing solutions for protein, starch, and sugars.  My intent was to have each group test each feed for all three nutrients.  I then figured we could have the students report their findings, and each group could compare to see what results they got and if they were different.  I then wanted them to ask themselves why different groups got different answers.  I was wrong. 

From this, I learned a few things.  The main thing being that IBI is something that requires a LOT of planning.   There is no telling which direction the students may take the lesson, so you need to be prepared for all of those directions.  Questions also need to be formulated before hand.  It is much easier to get students where you want them to be by asking them questions, if the questions are worked through and developed ahead of time.

If I could do this lab over, I would change a few things.

1. I would try to think of a better interest approach than just using an article.  I really like the idea of bringing literacy into the lesson, however, I believe that we all used this technique because it was shown to us, and I would have liked to try something a little different.  
2. I would better prepare my questions ahead of time.  I believe I stammered around a lot while I was trying to get the students to develop the question.
3. Have more test tubes out on the table so students were encouraged to take them and run more than one test.

I definitely have a lot of room for growth, especially with IBI, but I am very glad that I have had this experience so that I feel more comfortable to try this in an actual classroom setting.

Evaluation of Learning

How does one go about evaluating the learning of each student?  We are taught that everyone learns in different ways, so what is the best way to test students on their knowledge of the material covered?  As I read through the readings dealing with this issue this weekend, I realized that there is no ideal testing scenario, but it is completely necessary.  For this reason, I think that it is important to change up ways in which a student can succeed, so that everyone has a chance to truly show what they know.  For this reason it is not a good idea to simply test with a straight multiple choice type test.  It would be better to incorporate different types of questioning, such as true/false, short answer, essay, etc.
In my mind, a large part of Agricultural Education is learning by doing, or the hands on lab experience.  So, how do we go about assessing the learning that is occurring while out in the lab?  Personally, I do not think that it is enough to grade on solely completion of a project.  I believe that a student should be able to explain what they did and evidence that they not only can do everything, but they also understand why each step was necessary, or why each part was necessary.  To help facilitate and encourage my students to continue to make connections and seek understanding while out in the lab, I will remain engaged with the students and questioning their understanding as they work through the steps. 
 

As I further prepare for my quickly approaching time in the classroom, assessment is something that I continue to worry about.  I want to ensure that I am using both my time and the students time effectively.  I want to see my students succeed.  I want to see them truly get it.  But above all, I want my students to want to learn.  I want to assess them in a way that allows them to show they have learned the content, and to ensure that I have been effective.  I believe that all of these can be tested with an effective form of assessment.