From Green Blazers To Blue Corduroys

2nd Period Animal Science Defining the Why As I walked out the door on Friday I could help but remember that this is the end.  I successfully completed student teaching.  As I drove the hour and a half back to berks county I couldn't help but think to myself a couple of reflective questions. What was the point of student teaching? " The only source of knowledge is experience ." I think the student teaching experience taught me that the most.  The parts of a lesson I undervalued were things that in the beginning I struggled at.  Something that made an impact on me though, was being able to sit there and work on it. We go to college for all those years but we don't get a chance to demonstrate to ourselves teaching till you are teaching seven class periods in a day.  I think I gained experience and that was important.  In college we are told to be "Dewey Learners" but it isn't until student teaching does the concept of Learning by Doing really h...

Mock Interview with Dr. Jones 12th Grade Principal With my final week of student teaching I was given a chance to have a mock interview with the 12th Grade Principal, Dr. Jones.  The Mock interview was a practice run through of what to expect as a person who would be interviewed in a job in a high school.  Here are the stuff I learned: Meet and Greet Today, more and more schools are starting the interview process with a meet and greet which is a lot like speed dating where based upon their first impressions they will decide to higher you or not. What They Will Already Have They will already have your resume, cover letters, and letters of reference.  What they won't have is evidence of your teaching, or a philosophy statement.  Brings those into a room to share. It is also a good idea to have a resume for you to look at. Q & A Time I am not going to lie, I was unprepared for every question he asked.  Dr. Jones recommended to me to write down ev...

Differences in Ag Ed Programs - #PSUAgEd18 Successes Going to visit Ms. Balmer, fellow member of #PSUAgEd18, I was nervous as to what to expect.  Ms. Balmer is student teaching in Tri-Valley High School home to the Tri-Valley FFA Chapter.  Here are my notes I learned while visiting. Ms Balmer Teaching in her classroom Gender Differences At Cumberland Valley School District I am teaching a a ratio of 4:1 Female:Male students.  At Tri-Valley that is the complete opposite.  As a result the classroom environment is very different.  Boys, especially high school boys, tend to forget to be professional which leads to them often saying or doing something inappropriate in class.  The big thing I saw was how Ms Balmer had complete control of that behavior.  The boys knew the rules and knew what needed to be done for class. I know that every program is different but one thing I learned is that sometimes you don't know what to expect till you come int...

Building Chicken Coops For my community based unit of instruction I had this great idea.  During #PSUAgEd2WI (Domestic Study Away to Wisconsin) I had the chance to learn about a philanthropic program called Pens for Hens.  Pens for Hens started out as a sustainable agriculture program that travelled to Haiti but then became a program which raises money to fund trips to Haiti to help towns in Haiti to build modernized chicken facilities.  These facilities would raise both meat birds for Haitians but also provide layer birds which would supply about an egg a bird a day to them as well. The purpose of a community based unit of instruction is to provide the community with the opportunity to work with the students.  Often when we think about community we think about the town we live in.  I wanted my students to think bigger. So here was the plan: 1) Students will build chicken coops. 2) Chicken coops would be marketed and sold to members in the commun...

Being an Ag Teacher is just Ewe-tastic SAE Visits Filled with Sheep Finishing up my student teaching experience I got a chance to do a final SAE Visit. Two brothers that I had the privilege to teach this semester both raise sheep on the farm that I am staying at and so I had the chance to meet up with them and learn more about their operation. Both brother's share the responsibilities of raising the animals.  Often one of their parents will tag along but what I saw was more student working while the parent was supervising and making sure that the animals were being cared for.  This made me think that this experience was student driven which is a plus on an SAE visit.   Tried to take a picture of one of the lambs it decided that it wanted to try my phone as a mid day snack Both boys raise sheep (primarily cross-breeds they told me) with a collection of Ewes, Weathers  (or soon to be), Rams, and lambs.  When I asked one brother a question he wou...

Question: does the fire alarming going off during the South Central Regional PAAE meaning mean stuff was getting done or something else? The big lesson I learned from PAAE is how hard hosting can be for a regional meeting.  One thing I wouldn't have thought about: food. Like make sure you can feed a small army at a PAAE spring regional event because the State Officers will also be conducting a State Officer Orientation Meeting with FFA Members and talking about the process of becoming a state officer. Catering is the way to go.  Also charge a fee for students and advisors so you break even on the number that will attend. Another cool thing I learned is how to schedule rooms after hours.  This is important so that janitors know you are still in the building.  It will be especially useful when considering hosting events during the summer. The big thing I also learned having this experience is that as a young teacher this could be something that though...

How Professional Development leads to the Three Circle Model This spring I attended both Professional Development opportunities at ACES and SLLC.  I enjoyed all of the opportunities both gave but I am going to focus this blog on the ACES Professional Development because of something really cool that happened as well. At ACES we got to hear from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation where we learned about ways to teach Watersheds to students.  I enjoyed all the different activities because one of the topics I haven't taught while student teaching is Natural Resources and so getting some cool ways to talk about water was super useful. I especially liked how some of the activities were using different tools which made me sit there and think how some of these tools cost more than others but still led to the same results. It made me realize how there isn't one way to teach a lesson.  I hope that during the summer I'll have a chance to change up some of my lessons to see what ways...

Utilization of Group Testing for Animal Terms on Student Success and Retention of Information Background:     Teaching Introduction to Agricultural Science students the 50 different terms we use to describe animals can be a challenge to best help them learn the materials.   Students will see these terms and use them again and again in other agricultural classes so the retention of these terms are even more important.   At Cumberland Valley the Math Department utilizes a method of “group testing.” Group testing puts students into groups of three or four to solve a series of problems as a group.   The success of learning materials in a group for a subject such as math was explored in answering two questions: Does the utilization of group testing improve the scores of students and does the impact of group testing lead to retention of the terms explored.   Research Question:   Does the utilization of group testing improve the scores of s...

Finishing the Final Week Strong Planning for my final week of teaching I am giving back two classes, Animal Science and Food Science.  In theory this makes sense because my contract was to teach till the point I got and then hand them back over.  I will say I am going to miss teaching the students.  The struggle I had this week though was a classroom management issue which I found myself having no guidance on dealing with. I had two students decide to start shouting at each other and even though I told them to knock it off they proceeded to continue shouting at each other.  I found this to be a frustrating situation because this was my final day in that class. I did everything I was trained to do and yet part of me feels like I should have escalated it from a warning to a write up.  I hope to move forward from this instance and focus on the positives of teaching. I am excited and nervous to be wrapping up this week.  My game plan is to have 15 more suc...

Weekly Recap: Being Decisive. Being Meaningful. This week I had my final formal observation.  One of the big points that Dr. Foster made is I need to be more decisive in my directions. thinking back I have found that often I struggle the most with being decisive and giving clearly expected directions.  I think part of my difficulty has just been getting use to being in the "teaching shoes."  For 5 years I have been the student and now this semester I am the teacher.  I need to adjust a bit more on giving clear instructions and expectations while I am teaching. It has been a difficult challenge for me trying to better predict where the challenges lie for students to understand a set of directions.  I also realize now that I often say the words would like you too when I really mean I want you too.  I need to not be afraid of being direct to my students in what is expected for all projects and directions.  I think as a student teacher this has be...