Final Lab Reflection

When I started out in AEE 412 lab, I was pretty confident in my abilities to teach. I have quite a bit of experience teaching in non-formal settings. In lab I had a large wake up call when it comes to teaching in a formal setting! I learned about making sure it is all planned out and being able to move through the content at a steady pace. Before starting this class, I was highly unorganized, but because of the layout of the lessons, and content of the course I learned quickly that organization is key! I think that lab time was largely beneficial to my education in teaching. There are a lot of things that you don't realize teachers do, and this really opened my eyes to a lot of those things. It was challenging to teach to our peers with lessons designed to high school students. I noticed that some of our lessons were so engaging that the audience didn't matter. It would be really beneficial to have more time in a classroom, but that is what student teaching is for! If there was one thing I would change about AEE 412, is more instruction on the topics. We were always very rushed with learning about a topic and presenting the next day. It made it difficult to plan ahead when we had no idea what the next topic was, especially when it comes to Inquiry and Problem-Based Learning. Overall I really enjoyed lab and thought it was beneficial.

Creativity and Retail Therapy

The end is near and the stress is great, but for our last lab we got to have a little fun! We were tasked with using our favorite unit plan and designing a lesson using items that we purchased at the Dollar Tree! My favorite unit so far is my Wildlife Management unit. Without too much struggle, I had a couple of ideas going in to the store. Once I got there they didn't have exactly what I was looking for. To spice up my Wildlife Marking Lesson, I picked up a set of Christmas dove replicas, and some colored zip ties. My plan is to have students "color band" the birds with zip ties and have them look at them from afar to see if they can tell their birds apart with their unique color bands. To do this the whole class will have to create a spreadsheet of each individual bird. The other items I bought were plastic toy sets of snakes, frogs, and lizards, a long with a role of brightly colored wrapping paper. These are to bring my Survey Techniques Lesson to life! I laid out the wrapping paper and scattered the wildlife around it. I will have one group of students set it up, take a picture of it, and give the picture to another group. The students will have to analyze the photos to estimate population size. If the description doesn't cut it, check it out down below! Can you guess how many critters are in the picture?!

Micro Teaching

I completed my Micro Teaching experience at East Juniata HS under the supervision of Cortney Booher. I taught her 2nd period, Agriculture Education class. After some discussion with Mrs. Booher, we decide that I would teach a 3 day micro-unit on dairy cattle. Day one focused on learning about the breeds of dairy cattle in the U.S. I tasked the students with creating a promotion for their breed and convince me that their breed is superior to other breeds. I was expecting students to be engaged and excited about the project, however, they were not. I had a real struggle keeping them engaged. On the second day I did hands on activities, we made butter from heavy whipping cream, and we "painted" with milk, food coloring and dish soap. We talked about butterfat content of the breeds and talked about non-food products that we use everyday that contain dairy in them. On day 3 we talked about dairy judging and briefly went over the scorecard. I had to rush through the judging exercise because we were running short on time. I think if I were to do this in the future I would try to cover dairy judging over a 3 day lesson.

Life Knowedge

I completed my life knowledge lab under the supervision or Mrs. Kellogg at Coundersport Area HS. I taught my lesson to her 2nd period, 8th grade class. I taught them about the importance of SAE and how it can lead to career development. I asked the class what an SAE was and they gave me blank stares. I had no idea they had never been introduced to this idea. Because I did not know the SAE procedures of Mrs. Kellogg's program, I started to panic. I made very general characteristics about aspects of SAE and told them about the opportunities that SAE could provide. I spent more time than I originally planned for to go over SAE. When transitioning into career development, students seemed to be more engaged. We did group work to identify the difference between jobs, careers, and tasks. After completing that assignment, I had each student write a short-term goal, long-term goal, and a career goal. I gave them some time to come up with ideas, several of the students had trouble thinking about what they might want to do when they were older. I was surprise to learn that many of the students were not thinking about careers in agriculture. This really helped me to realize that not everyone in an ag class is necessarily interested in the subject, and as the teacher I need to make sure I am engaging those students.

Inquiring Minds Want to Know

The past couple weeks we have jumped into one of the toughest teaching strategies, Inquiry Based Instruction. We were able to work with experts in the field and watch first hand as they used IBI to teach their classes. While watching from the sidelines it was hard to see and appreciate the magic that was happening inside the minds of the students. After having Mr. Clark come back to our classroom later in the week and answer questions and go into more depth on the subject, it all became a little more clear.

After watching and learning we were tasked to try it out for ourselves for lab. Everyone was confused and frustrated, but I guess that's how you know its working! I did my instruction using aerial surveys to estimate elk populations in my Natural Resource Management class. I tried to make sure that I was not trying to make EVERY component student centered. I noticed quite a few of my classmates trying that and they seemed very frustrated with the results. So I tried to pinpoint each component so that I could cover the spectrum. I think I did a pretty decent job with it. One thing I do need to work on is developing higher order questions. I have a hard time thinking ahead for possible answers, this makes it hard to predict what students are going to say and makes me think on my feet. I am excited to keep trying to utilize IBI and look forward to improving my teaching!

My First National Convention!

Midd-West FFA Horse Judging Team
Placed 16th Nationally

Laura Metrick and Myself sharing our First Ever FFA National Convention
Taking it all in!

As you all know I do not have an extensive FFA background. I never really knew much about the organization until last year. I was lucky enough to travel to the National FFA Convention in Louisville, KY the last week of October with Midd-West FFA. I had a great experience and learned a lot about the organization. I was able to take a look behind the scenes with Midd-West FFA's competing Horse Judging Team.




FFA Members from various states spectating the
 Ford Built Tough Booth Activities

It was really great for me to see a national event like this. Until now I have very much been blinded to the world not thinking about anything that was too far away from my doorstep. After being at national convention I have been thinking on a larger scale. I was able to meet people from all across the United States and talk with them about ag industries in their areas. I was amazed to hear from some folks in Washington State that they live in a desert and have very little production. When I think of Washington State, I think of the OTHER half of the state that has temperate rain forest. It is amazing to think that what rainfall we get here in PA in the coarse of a day may be the same amount of rainfall that they get in a year!




As part of my assignment while attending National Convention I was to observe inspiring and depressing moments of people's treatment towards others. Overall I have to say that I was very impressed by the respect and attitude of FFA members from across the Nation. I heard many apologies when members were bumping into each other in crowded areas, and saw people moving out of the way and making room for a young lady who had crutches while trying to navigate the convention center. One of the most inspiring things I saw was a group of FFA members stationed at the bottom of the escalator giving everyone who rode it a high five and encouraging words like "Be Awesome!, "Go Places", and "Go All Out!". (Pictured Left)


One of the more depressing things I observed while at national convention was the attitude of the adults, including parents, chaperones, and advisors. I heard many of them complaining of people "in their way", and rude comments about passers by. I was shocked to see the students being more respectful and mature than the adults!