Observation and Integration: Week #1

First week of student teaching... here and gone!

The time has finally arrived where I can say that I am at Greenwood for good. I have made it to student teaching! And what a journey it has been to get here. Despite the fact that I have not started teaching yet, I feel affirmed that Greenwood is the best placement for me. There are so many excellent ag teachers and ag programs across the state, but little old Millerstown is where I belong.

 

That is not to say that this week wasn't met with some difficulties. I observed many challenges and saw first hand the collaboration of teachers in the school.

The roller coaster of week #1

Monday was Farm Show day! You can read more about that experience in my previous blog. 

Tuesday was my first official observation day. Despite some of those first day jitters, I feel it went fairly smoothly.

Later that day, I was informed of a tragedy in the Greenwood School District. Out of respect to the privacy of the situation and those involved, I will simply say that I was able to observe the position the administration and teachers have in helping the students and the community deal with a tragedy. However, I wasn't able to see this fully play out until the week was over.

Wednesday, the icy conditions meant school was cancelled, but that doesn't mean the ag teachers stop working! Mr. Clark had a meeting with the Farm Safety and Occupational Health Advisory Board on which he serves. This was in the morning at Farm Show, so I joined him for this. I had a glimpse of the many hats teachers wear in their community. Later that night, I returned to farm show with students and Mrs. Pontius this time. These students worked in the FFA Foundation Pizza Booth for a shift. I enjoyed using this time to get to know my students more and truly assume the advisor's role as I helped with the stand. 

Thursday and Friday were both similar to Tuesday in that I simply observed for these two days. 

Overall this week went really well! I feel pretty comfortable with my students and my cooperating center. I am still extremely nervous to take over teaching next week, but I know once I start I will be just fine. And I know I have wonderful cooperating teachers who will be there every step of the way. I've been sitting comfortable so far, but I know I need to push myself to get over my fears and start teaching!

Next week, I will be taking on two classes: Plant Science and Small Gas Engines. 

In Plant Science, I will be starting on my Prevention and Control of Agronomic Pests unit where we will be identifying insect pests, listing the anatomical features of insects, discussing beneficial insects, and identifying weed pests. 

I will be picking up Small Gas Engines from the very beginning of the topic so I will be starting out with Safety and Tools identification unit. Students in this class have been in the shop all year, so I will be doing safety more specific to small engines rather than general safety components, and they have already begun discussing tools for other topics, so some will carry over into this unit. 

In addition, Monday is an in-service day for teachers. Mrs. Pontius and Mr. Clark and I are taking advantage of an archery training session where we will walk away certified to instruct archery. Don't know if I'll ever use that training but certainly something to add to the résumé! 

Keep an eye on my blogs to see how next week goes!

Leaving Thought

"Believe you can and you're halfway there" -- Theodore Roosevelt 

Mid Winter FFA Convention: An Ag Teacher's First Steps

Mid Winter FFA Convention Reflection

Just like a baby taking their first steps or a young child learning to ride a bike, I got to finally step into my role as an ag teacher and advisor. I am now officially a student teacher!

And what better way to begin this journey than a real test! Mr. Clark and Mrs. Pontius both had to arrive at the Farm Show early with students for contests they were competing in. Myself and a teacher aid were in charge of bringing the remaining twenty-four students to the Farm Show. 

Despite some first day jitters, I was fairly confident after travelling to the National FFA Convention with the students and having been to the Farm Show as many times as I have. So there were no issues getting these students where they needed to be.

Upon arrival, some students helped to setup for Mid Winter by organizing chairs and jackets. It never ceases to amaze me how willing the students are to help out and it brings me great joy to see them do so without complaint even though it wasn't their responsibility and they were in official dress hauling chairs around the arena!

Afterwards they got to walk around for a little until the convention started. 

Greenwood is proud to say that we had students succeeding in many areas including:

10 Keystone Degree Recipients

13 Freshman Jacket Award Recipients

1 WLC Scholarship Recipient
1 Ag Issues Team
19 Agriscience Project Participants
1 Chapter Agricultural Display

and 1 student performing the National Anthem

My students are something special! And they work hard to get to where they are too! While winning isn't everything, I hope I can one day cultivate motivated and active leaders in my own FFA chapter. If only it was as easy as Mr. Clark and Mrs. Pontius make it look! 

Big Picture: Farm Show is the perfect way to ease a new teacher in. I feel it starts the experience at something common and comfortable for both the students and myself since we have both attended before. It was a positive experience with zero issues. 

My goal for the next trip is to make sure I write every instruction given to me down! I thought I could remember everything my CTs told me before they left but I forgot to do something before I left. Fortunately it wasn't a big deal, but I now know that even when you think you can remember something, the hustle and bustle of getting students where they need to be can sometimes make you forget things! I learning already!

NAAE Convention Reflection

Las Vegas, Nevada, here we come!

Several weeks ago, I had the opportunity to travel to Vegas to join fellow ag teachers at the NAAE annual convention. Here are my top 3 take aways from this experience

Networking

I got to meet other preservice teachers like myself during the FAST symposium (Future Agriscience Teacher symposium). We engaged in activities around inquiry based instruction, hands-on "agtivities", and CASE curriculum. We also got to listen to various speakers about their thoughts and experiences with teaching agriculture. 

As far as networking goes, I got to learn a little bit more about agricultural education programs across the country, and meet ag teachers who gave good advice. I joined in committee and regional meetings and got to connect with teachers from Pennsylvania. 

Professional Development

Of course, one goal of the convention is professional development workshops. I went to several workshops throughout the week. Some of the notable ones are the LGBQT inclusion, aquaponics, vet checks workshops. I enjoyed each of these and was able to snag some cool resources from them too!

Community

Meeting all of those teachers and those involved with the NAAE shows me that despite how many teachers there are, there is a strong community of teachers who are always willing to help and support. There were many teachers who would share their e-mail addresses, twitter handles, and business cards just to help me out. They are all so welcoming to new ag teachers.

I am truly excited to join in the ag ed family and to be a part of a group as welcoming as this. I would definitely recommend other preservice and ag teachers to go to this event!

I would like to thank Penn State and PAAE for providing me with this opportunity. I wouldn't have been able to attend without their support. 

Life Knowledge: The Sneak Peak Experience

My lesson for Life Knowledge was about goal setting and personal vision. I taught students on the importance of setting goals and how to write S.M.A.R.T. goals. 

The Life Knowledge lesson was an overall good experience. If you read my blog on my microteaching experience, my struggle was time limits. I was doing microteaching at the same time as my Life Knowledge lesson so I wasn't able to fully reflect and make adjustments. But even getting more class time was really helpful. 

I led them through a fun little icebreaker and then I had them come up with their own definitions of what they believe personal vision is. Afterwards, I gave a short presentation on components and parts of a S.M.A.R.T. goal. Then I had them do a race where they had to apply their goal setting skills. I would have liked to have them go through this for a little bit longer, and have a deep reflection time as well as give them time to write their own goals. But I had to shorten those in order for them to wrap up and do their learner satisfaction forms. 

I think I over planned, and while that isn't always a bad thing (it's good to have something else planned in case students finish early) I think I wanted to get through all of it and so I felt it was a little rushed in the end. I think there were things I could have cut out in order to reach my objectives. 

The students seemed pretty receptive to hands-on activities, but during lecturing time, they were a little more shy. I'm still figuring out how to ask engaging questions. I am also figuring out how to handle it when students don't answer and give me blank looks. A piece of advice from Mrs. Pontius was to call on students specifically. I hate the idea of doing this because I don't want to put students in an uncomfortable position if they really don't know. But Mrs. Pontius said you can tell pretty easily if they really don't know, in which case they can phone a friend. 

Hopefully I can pick up on those cues and be able to adapt as needed. I now know my goals this year are time management and questioning. 

Microteaching... How much do they really know about cattle?

The Top 3 Things I Learned from Microteaching at Juniata High School

I planned three lessons on the cattle industry for an introductory ag class. I wanted to start with general terminology and providing students with clear definitions of bovine terms. Then I was going to introduce them to some breeds of cattle which would lead into my lesson on selective breeding. Finally, I would begin to touch on methods of raising both dairy and beef cattle. The classes were 40 minutes long and it was a one-on-one so each had their own iPad in addition to the ag department having Chromebooks. The school also used Google Classroom. 

1. Slow it down; break it down

The first day I started off with general terminology. Some words included knowing the difference between a cow and a heifer, others were more in depth such as ruminant animals or castration. While I didn't explain the whole digestive or surgical process, I introduced them to words I would expect that they would come across as the week went on (also words that they might recognize from past lessons or will hear in future lessons).

I went through my powerpoint on terminology pretty quickly for a few reasons. One was just nerves. But mostly because I gave them access to the powerpoint with their iPads so they didn't need to take notes.. they had it right in front of them and could reference anytime they needed. I also knew having a 40 minute class was going to make me pressured to get through my objectives for that day so I wanted to make sure we had time for the application activity later. I also felt that these words were fairly basic or easy to remember. In fact, I was worried that the lessons was too easy. So I didn't want to spend a long time going through a boring powerpoint. 

I did, however take some pauses and ask questions for the students such as "why do you think farmers use castration?" and things like that which got them thinking a little. They were reluctant to answer at times, but I thought they were just shy.

Later, Evy mentioned to me that she noticed some confused looks on their faces as I went through the powerpoint--something I must not have noticed (I think it was the nerves). So this whole time I was thinking that this lesson would be simple where in fact, it was a little more on the challenging side for them. I learned that I need to slow it down for them, take a breath and really look around the room and see how they are taking the information. Also just break down the information, even if it looks like they might understand. 

On the plus side, I did a Go Get It E-moment with them and they LOVED it. I think it also helped solidify what they just learned which was great. As far as clarity goes for giving directions, I think I nailed it too!

2. Technology is your friend... and your enemy

Growing up in an era where schools had the huge plastic box called a desktop computer (you know, the ones that took 5 minutes to load and the only games were minesweeper?), I was certainly not used to a one-on-one school district. So I was worried about what the technology situation would look like. For the most part, they were pretty productive on them. I would have them look up information for their bellwork or use it for some of the projects they did. However, there were a few individuals that were goofing off on their iPads or phones. I was floating around the room often so I was able to catch it often, but it was still a huge distraction for some students. And some of those students were the ones who constantly finished last. 

It's hard coming into someone else's classroom and not knowing all of their rules (even with a day of observing) and trying to lay down the law. I believe I did a good job in controlling the situation when it happened. I think I should have followed up with the next "step". But if it's their iPads, who I am to take them away? And now they don't get any work done. So who really wins? Technology is certainly a blessing and a curse. 

3. Time is of the essence

By the time all of the students get settled, come back from the bathroom, begin their bellwork, and are ready to start the class, 10 minutes might have gone by. Then to go over it and get into the interest approach, and transition into the lesson takes even more time. By the end of the day, I found that I could barely get through one objective... and I might have had two or three! There is not enough time in the day and I have no idea how teachers get through their lessons and feel like their students have learned something. They must certainly be magical. 

I know I tend to over plan activities, but I still envisioned certain projects going much quicker than they did. Students needed more time finishing assignments and I had not anticipated that. So I would start by saying that I would give them five minutes for something but they needed ten. I kept pushing it because I thought I was being adaptable. 

Mrs. Morgan suggested having a specific time for when they were to be done by and sticking to it. They could finish it later, but in order to make progress, they needed to continue moving through the lesson. I think this will be valuable for me as I try to teach 42 minute classes in the spring. Some lessons can be adaptable, but the rest can either be finished for homework, after school, or the next day. I might have to work in some "work days" or "catch up days" just in case this happens. Not sure of other teachers' perspectives on this, but it's just a thought. 

Reflection

I was glad for the experience to microteach. There are some challenges as far as not knowing the students beforehand and not knowing the classroom management views of the teacher, but I liked having the trial and error experience. I think the biggest lesson for me was getting a feel of what exactly 40 minutes feels like and knowing how to use my time as effectively as possible. 

Lab Trial #4: Inquiry Based Instruction

Question or Problem

How can Inquiry Based Instruction be used as a tool in the classroom?

toggletime.net

...engaging in IBI activities... researching IBI... hypothesizing that students will be independent learners as IBI is implemented...

Testing the experiment

The lesson I prepared was about determining pH levels in soil and how it affects plant appearance and growth. Using a Lab Aid kit, I had the students use the chemicals (called "Plant Nutrients", "Plant Mass", "Soil Aluminum", and "Agricultural Lime") and develop a hypothesis on what would happen to the chemicals when combined. They weren't given anything to test specifically for pH, rather, they were to determine what chemical provided would have an effect on the plant. It was supposed to change the color of the liquids depending on how much of each was added. I had them work in groups and design their own experiment.

sebamedusa.com

Analysis and results of data

Inquiry Based Instruction (IBI) is something that does not come easily to me. I am so conditioned to having specific procedures and knowing exactly how I'm going to be graded. I am not used to creating my own learning (if you can think of IBI like that) much less teach it. I was itching to help and teach rather than sit back and let the students take control.

saintermediate.blogspot.com

As much as I prepared and tried to plan for any confusion or gaps, I couldn't foresee the issues that would happen when I turned students loose after explaining what they were to do. I think part of the struggle with my lesson was trying to turn very explicit instructions with the Lab Aids kit into something that had zero directions. I practiced with the chemicals beforehand and tried several combinations based on what I thought my students would do. These combinations still produced pretty accurate results so I wasn't worried about them not getting it 100% in line with the procedures that came with the kit.

When I first introduced the lab, the students were expecting to use pH testing strips. It was then that I realized that my objective didn't match my goal for that lesson... not exactly. Yes, it was a pH lab, but this particular lab wasn't testing pH levels, it was comparing how agricultural lime raises the pH. The change in color was to show that the lime was bringing up the pH; making it more basic. This only created confusion, understandably, and they were struggling to create a hypothesis if they didn't know what exactly it was they were going to see when they tested it. 

quotesgram

Based on the feedback I got, I think I did a pretty good job of staying cool, reworking their task, and getting them to test something. Once they started working with the chemicals they did start to notice how the chemicals changed the color. However both groups only tested one or two things instead of having multiple test trials. I think they might have been able to figure out the goal if they had tested more than one combination of the chemicals.  

Conclusion

I think I have the idea of Inquiry Based Instruction down and I have a picture of all that can be done with Inquiry. I think the biggest fear (not just mine alone) is trying to plan as much as possible beforehand and play out every possible scenario ahead of time, and then arrive at the lesson only to find out that students don't understand or you didn't consider that they would try testing x instead of y. 

I really liked the idea of the lab I did. I don't know if it was really meant to be an Inquiry lab, but I think there might be aspects of it that could be. I also think I needed to reform my objectives and goals of the lab. I will say that the rest of the lesson was going to go more specifically into pH where they would look at what they've found and compare the colors to charts which would reflect what pH results look like. So this lab was only a snippet of the whole lesson. I hope to get more practice and to observe teachers who use IBI, but for now I think I'm still trying to feel it out. I do hope I can one day get my students to start truly thinking critically and not being so dependent on myself as the teacher. I think that is something so valuable for them to learn.

Teach Ag Twitter Chat: Growing Global Competency in Classrooms

This time of year seems especially busy for the 2017 cohort. So many events are all shoved into the lovely fall month of October!

One of those events is our Teach Ag Chat. My group and I did ours about growing global competency. How do we get students more aware of global issues, cultural differences, and agriculture outside of the US and Pennsylvania?

Here were our questions for the twitter chat:

Thoughts on the chat 

I think our chat went really well. We had a lot of participants ranging from students, to organizations, to ag teachers, and we had many representing from other states and universities. There was great conversation going on, offering ideas on getting more students involved in the world around them. 

Below is a link to the storify and blog on the twitter chat by George Dietrich:
http://teachagchat.blogspot.com/2016/10/october-27th-increasing-global.html

Thoughts on the experience

Twitter chats are tough! Using tweet deck is really helpful for some organization, and having the questions planned ahead of time and having them post automatically (set on a timer) helps to eliminate lags or human error, but it's still difficult to juggle. Being the thorough person that I am, I like to take time on my answers and really think about them. I could have planned out ahead of time what my answers were going to be, but didn't, so perhaps that's what I should think about for next time. However, if everyone planned out their tweets ahead of time so that they had time to read responses, then perhaps the pressure of tweeting with only a 5-10 minute time frame isn't enough? Or perhaps a blog or something is a better medium for the deep thinkers such as myself.. just a thought #KIR.

To speak on the connected educator quality, I think this is a great way for people to quickly share a thought, idea, blurb, or otherwise from their experience. One question can spark another, and one person can inspire an idea. Even just knowing who the gurus of specific topics are is a great way to stay connected. Users can follow those gurus and ask specific questions if they feel they have more after the chat. There were many people from outside of Pennsylvania that I have seen on the chats that I can now feel a little more comfortable reaching out to because we've had that short conversation via the twitter chat. 

Teach Ag Twitter

Twitter in general is a source to use for a quick thought or question. While I don't think it can stand alone as a reliable source or as a way to find a wealth of information, I think it can connect users to the person or group that will get them those answers. I'm glad that agricultural teachers have this tool to connect.