Understanding the Why of Teaching in Week Three

The Journey of Student Teaching: Day 15

Third Week Reflections: Teaching the Why of an Activity

Essential Questions for this Week:

  • What did you learn this week while student teaching?

In my third week at Cumberland Valley I can now say I am teaching for most of the week. I am getting to work with the Intro to Ag Students as they begin the Plant Sciences Lesson in the CASE AFNR lesson.  Though there are two classes I am learning that each moves at their own pace especially when it comes to the expectations of completing an assignment.  Today was the final day of completing the build a complete flower model. In the one class I have about 16 of the 20 flowers completed, with labels, and with their names on and students expecting to get them back with a grade. The other section only 10 of 18 got done.  I will need to work on not just keeping students on track but also working on improving the understanding of a lesson as well. 
[Update: On Monday they all were do 1st pd had 4 not turn them in and another 2 were not turned in in 7th period]

Going to be me on Tuesday when students start to notice no grade"














Also I finally have gotten my Ag Construction to successfully make a shop safety handbook (may blog about that as well). Which now means they are in the shop practicing with the equipment.  What I am finding with them is that many of them have used the equipment before and so they are excited to jump into the shop and start practicing.  They are loving the chance to show me that they understand how to use all of the equipment as well.  I think that with my demonstration/practice lessons these will go a bit quicker which means they will be closer to beginning my community based unit of instruction.

Meeting with my cooperating teacher this week I was reminded about one thing: "Even though the activity and main lesson is fun and important to work, the WHY of the activity and lesson is even more important."  What is nice about CASE is they supply a lot of really good why's in the form of Essential Questions and Conclusion Questions.  These are important that the students are making connections to this when we talk about the why as well.  I think looking forward I need to make sure that with each activity we hit the why. Especially with teaching a full load come next week it will be important that the students are hitting what they need to hit.


Me Imagining what grading seven classes is going to be like at first

 To Be Continued . . .

Comments

  1. Tiffany MoreyFebruary 11, 2018 at 3:46 PM

    George, definitely use those essential questions from the CASE curriculum to your advantage, as they do a great job at emphasizing the "why" of the APPs that your students complete! What did you do to address the students that turned their flower models in without names, or that did not turn them in at all? Having a plan in place and clearly stated expectations for students when it comes to turning in work will help make dealing with these types of things easier for both you and them.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UnknownFebruary 14, 2018 at 9:18 AM

      Oh it was easy. I gave all students that didn't have a flower with their name on it a zero. They saw that they were failing and were like "Hey Mr. Dietrich! I handed that in!" Took two weeks but all flowers that were turned in were now graded.

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