From Green Blazers To Blue Corduroys

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...

Alpacas and Cattle on this Exciting SAE Visit Reflective Blog Post on the Implementation of SAE Visits Part Two Visit Two: Dairy Placement For this visit we got to visit one of my students at her family Dairy Farm.  This visit I got the chance to see a student hard at work on her families dairy. This student showed me every aspect of her family's dairy operation and explained to me how at each aspect she plays a role in that side of the operation. We went in the milking parlor, walked around the calf hutches, went to where they keep the heifers and young bulls, to where they keep the cows nice and happy.  I got to see how she operates all aspects of the farm. Probably the best part of this observation with this student was seeing how she is thinking about what can she do to improve her farm after she graduates high school.  When asked about different ways this SAE has helped her she told me it made her see value in gaining additional experience to improve the ...

Alpacas and Cattle on this Exciting SAE Visit Reflective Blog Post on the Implementation of SAE Visits Part One Visit One: Bent Pine Alpaca Farm For this SAE visit I got the chance to visit and work with two individuals at once. Two of the students at Cumberland Valley both work at the Bent Pine Alpaca Farm.  Here they both have "Exotic Animal" SAE Projects where they raise and maintain alpacas.  This SAE for both of them started off as 4-H animals but then progressed once they got to high school to be full fledge FFA SAE projects. Prior to the trip we coordinated with both students to make sure they were there and ready for our visit.  Prior to the trip I got the addresses of both visits and collected a notepad and pen so I could take notes while I was on the road as well. The primary goal of this trip was to record information for them to both work on possible proficiency applications.  What I enjoyed about the visit was getting to see the work ethic the ...

Running my First FFA Trip: Mr. Dietrich is in Charge at SLLC During Week Twelve Student Teaching Day 60: Weekly Reflection Objectives of the blog: Reflect on this weeks experience This week was a little intense. Here was the run down: Sunday - Tuesday: SLLC Wednesday: Snow Day Thursday: 2hr delay (taught for a total of 3 hrs.) Friday: Student Teaching In-service So what was my big take away this week?  I would say it was SLLC.  Why? I was given control as to what we were doing while at SLLC.  Originally we had planned that I would be the primary chaperone on the CV Spring Break Trip.  That trip was unfortunately cancelled.  As a result it became my job of planning the minor details of the trip. So what did I do?  I learned the details behind getting things such as school vans, registering school trips, how to get permission forms out, the list is long but it can get done at reasonable times.  A great tip I learned is take a...

Working on improving teaching objectives and teaching goals in Week Eleven Student Teaching Day 55: Weekly Reflection Objectives of the blog: Reflect on this weeks experience With a completion of Week Eleven I am starting to gain confidence back into my lessons everyday. One of things I've been doing that a little different each week now than prior is I have been writing out the different strategies that I am going to use in a class as well. I am not longer just writing down my bell works, ticket outs, learning objectives, like I was weeks prior. I am not including things which make my plans for each week "mini-lesson plans" just without the whole summary of learning and all of the finer details.  The real problem: Learning how to eat multiple "frogs" at the same time I have found this to help me because I can look at my overall week and reflect on how each day has gone and from there come up with a game plan on what my next week will loo...

The Journey of Student Teaching: Day 45 Mr. Dietrich vs Seniors and Their Senioritis Essential Question for this week: What is something you learned this week while student teaching? This week I have begun to detect the worse contagion in the senior students out there: I find it very intriguing how some of the students look at what they are learning like "Oh I am almost done and I should just not do anything." And then I have to think about ways I can get them motivated. This has also been a fun challenge for me as well. I often find myself trying new ways to keep the class engaging.  For example when introducing methods of creating GMOs with the seniors I found it to be easiest when they each looked up one type and then shared out-loud something that they learned. Of course now the comment made in the classes are: "Mr. Dietrich, when are we going to be back in the lab?" I also found ways to connect to students even more and make the things...

The Journey of Student Teaching: Day 40 Weekly Reflection: How weeks are filled with ups and downs Essential Question for this week: What is something you learned about this week? Trying to get into the flow of teaching is like sailing on the sea. There will be ups and downs.  Some days are going to go really good, while other days are going to go poorly.  Being a student teacher is learning how to address those ups and downs as you go.  The hard part I have found about student teaching is how to remind myself that I am a good teacher and not let a single bad lesson chop up the seas for the rest of the day. Though I have been at this for a while now my biggest challenge is my students voicing that a lesson is bad. Instead of them saying anything I have found that more often than not my students prefer to simply tap out and quit learning.  I have found it tough then to get the students to voice their concerns with me or their confusion.  So...

The Journey of Student Teaching: Day 36 FFA Reflections: Career Development Practice in a University not Like PSU Essential Question for this week: What is something you learned about CDE Practices this weekend? CV FFA ended their National FFA week by jumpin on a bus and going all the way down to Ms Rombergers undergraduate location of Delaware Vally Universtiy. Here the Delaware Vally Collegiate FFA Alumni Chapter hosted a career development event intense practice. Here students got to work together and practice different CDE competitions such as Livestock judging, vet Sciences, floriculture, diary products evaluation, agricultural Mechanics, food Science, and horse evaluation.  The students got to interact with students from three states as they practiced and learned more about the national level competitions that are typically very similar to the state level ones. What was cool about this trip was how close the students have become to me. Instead of me just...

The Journey of Student Teaching: Day 35 Fifth Week Reflections: When Sleep is an Option and so Totally Worth it for National FFA Week Essential Question for this week: What is something you learned while teaching this week? During national ffa week the officers and the committee chairs worked their buts off planning an intense week of exciting activities. So I’ll talk about all of my students everyday and the exciting this they did this week: Tuesday: Celebrate FFA  To kick off celebrate FFA the students wore FFA swag. I put on one of my FFA ties to support the festivities. What I saw this week wasn't all the kids participating but instead multiple kids going, "Darn! I forgot!" Also, it was pretty cool to be the Ag Teacher for a week and be the excited one to see all of the participation in the activities. I enjoyed today because of the excitement I saw in my students on what FFA Week meant to them. Wednesday: Career Success Wednesday the kids ...

The Journey of Student Teaching: Day 35 Seventh Week Reflections: If student teaching didn't challenge me then how could I grow as a future teacher? Essential Question for this week: What is something you learned while teaching this week? In the mid way point of the semester I find myself contencting to the memes on how if you ain’t tired you ain’t a teacher. Especially with this half way mark being the end of the first half of student teaching I find myself being reminded more and more about this quote that we used to describe student teaching. Don’t get me wrong I have had some great lessons. I have. My big thing that I also find myself saying is that as I get into my second half of student teaching I need to not be satisfied with a couple of good lessons and a couple of bad lessons. I need to grow. I know this may sound like I am being hard on myself but I see that if I accept this my students will begin to expect this of myself as well. And to me it’s...

The Journey of Student Teaching: Day 25 Fifth Week Reflections: When Blizzards Mean Crazy Lesson Timing Essential Question for this week: What is something you learned while teaching this week? Context: Monday - Two Hour Delay, Wednesday - No School, Thursday - Two Hour Delay Aside from me determining that school in PA during February should just be cancelled I did get to experience some fun aspects of student teaching this week. One thing I definitely realized this week teaching is that the time in class can be tough to really lay out a solid lesson plan. Two hour delays have made me start to realize that with less time in the classroom some lessons get split into two days instead of one day.  Two of my lessons got dragged out longer but more because with two hour delays the delayed time can drag out a lesson.  One of the benefits of allowing students more time on an activity though is the students really get to show their ability and creativit...

The Journey of Student Teaching: Day 20 Fourth Week Reflections: Teaching a Full Load Essential Question for this Week: What did you learn this week while student teaching? To me this fourth week started out really nerve racking.  Only 3 days into the semester and I will be teaching for a total of 7 out of 9 periods in the day.  To me this was nerve racking more because this made me realize that this was real. With teaching 7 periods what I learned is that I needed to be willing to let the Inquiry and Independent work happen. As the saying goes: When you assume . . . And I probably started last week with that with the students. For example when I hear the word Biotechnology I think that students should have strong scores in chemistry and biology before taking it.  What I didn't plan on was on that in a high school not everything is taught on the level that I learned stuff in high school. And so I started Biotech last week with this feeling of total dread bec...

The Journey of Student Teaching: Day Five First Week Reflection: Total Three Circle Immersion at Cumberland Valley Essential Questions for Today:  Look back and Reflect upon your experiences of Week One. Looking back to week one I can't help but begin to understand the importance of the three circle model and getting students to follow it.  In college we are told "Use the Three Circle Model" but we never truly see the 3 Circle model used.  What I found value in this week was I got to interact with both Agriscience Teachers and see how their system implements the 3 Circle Model.  Intro to Agriculture Class Talking About Hereditary Traits in Humans Classroom Instruction / Laboratory Implementation - Something I learned here is students will make connections that you don't realize are connections.  One of the students said in the Animal Science Dissection Activity that the spleen looks a lot like the sponge used to water hermit crabs....