From Green Blazers To Blue Corduroys

Weekly Investments: Classroom Management  This weeks prompt is in one of my personal favorites: Classroom Management. And by that I mean one of the things that makes everyone in the cohort worry a tad.   As an Agriscience Teacher we fill three roles at once in our classroom (Instructor, Mentor, Coach) and as a teacher in my opinion that is a little different than compared to other teachers.  Thinking back on my summer reading I remember that classroom management isn't something that works the same way for everyone.  Classroom management is in my opinion something that varies based upon the students in the classroom.   Classroom-Instructor  SAE - Mentor FFA Leadership - Coach Looking at classroom management I think the essential is to establish expectations in which the students buy into.  Looking around my cooperating classroom I noticed right away that Ms Romberger has classroom expectation posters on her one wall.  Here they...

Essential Question: How do we Utilize Inquiry Based Learning in our Classroom? For the next two weeks Penn State #PSUAgEd18 will be exploring inquiry based learning.  From my personal understanding Inquiry Based Learning (Inquiry Base Instruction) is a pedagogical approach which main goal is to make the students the driver of learning and the teacher more of a facilitator.   So instead of this: Leading to this: Students Response We as teachers are encouraged to change up the lesson. Thinking about my high school experiences some of my favorite classes were the Project Lead the Way Classes - Why? They utilized inquiry based and problem based learning. Inquiry Based Learning is to Problem Solving Approach as Squares are to Rectangles Much like how all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares: all inquiry lessons are also PSA but not all PSA lessons are inquiry lessons.  With problem solving approach you have steps an...

Weekly Investment: Learning as Problem Solving Disclaimer: I have already written two blogs on individual learning so instead I thought it would be pretty cool to focus on the second part of the reading Problem Solving as a form of Learning.  If you want to see those two blogs check out these two links: Individualized Learning in a Room of Many Individuals (Part One):  http://fromgreenblazers2bluecorduroysaged.blogspot.com/2017/10/individual-learning-in-room-of-many.html Individual Learning Part Two - Different Ways Of Application:   http://fromgreenblazers2bluecorduroysaged.blogspot.com/2017/10/individual-learning-part-two-different_9.html Learning as Problem Solving Every day we go through self learning. Take for example these blogs that we are writing are a sense of self learning: We write them over the weekends on readings that are our focus in learn for the upcoming week.  Then we write these blogs and are challenged to read each others blogs and deve...

Weekly Investment: Evaluating Learning (Part One) Scenario: I have one student that I would consider the best in my class. She does great on all assignments and on all tests. She leaves for the summer with an A grade on her report card.  My other student on the other hand is a handful.  He struggles on all assignments, and as a result he walks out with a D grade, which in highschool is still passing so he can continue onto the next grade. Both of these students preform an SAE which has them working at a local nursery part time over the summer.  During my mid year SAE review I sat down with their supervisors to get an idea of where my students were and what I would need to work on to help develop them as students.  The supervisor was not impressed with my A grade students work ethic and ability to work on a team and recommended that she receive a D letter grade. My student which has always struggled in my classroom though was one of the hardest working part tim...

Weekly Investment: Problem Solving Approach Problem Solving Lessons are the focus of this week's weekly investment.  To help better understand them as a cohort we have begun looking into different styles of teaching them.  To better understand problem solving approach to lessons let me ask the problem: Why are these kinds of lessons so successful? Problem Solving Lessons are great to introduce topics to students.  For our usage we categorizes problem solving approaches into four categories: Forked Road Multiple Possibilities or Factors Situation to be Improved Effect / Cause Let's expand a little on each: 1. Forked Road We like to use these style questions when there are only two options in a problem.  We also call these "Should I" questions. Questions like this are: Should I Cull or Breed an animal? Should I go to class or not go to class? (A daily challenge for most college students) Should I watch Penn State Football or should I wat...

Weekly Investment: Effective Teaching and Language in Instruction This week we are going to be talking about language in instructions and its effect on teaching.  Thinking back to my internships with extension I new that if I didn't give clear instructions in an activity my students would be 100 % confused and they don't want to learn. So instead I look at blooms taxonomy to create segue questions that I will ask during my lessons. I like the idea of in a unit you ask simple questions first and then scaffold the learning by asking more complex questions later.  To me this works also during a lesson because it helps students build up what they can learn. I know thinking about classes in high school I enjoyed learning progressively. To me to be an effective teacher you have to be willing to alter the questions you ask. You have to change up the style and types.  I really liked the University of Florida Article we read this weekend.  It reminded me that dependin...