Week Six- Short but Sweet

This week was very short due to cancelations, delays, seminar and a visit to another program. I only had two instructional days with my students which is extremely frustrating. I only have  weeks left with my students and in these next few short weeks are a few large projects! This week was definitely a lesson to myself in being able to adapt my lessons and rearrange them in a way that was still systematic for the kids, but valuable in a short time frame. I think they hardest class I had adapting was my Natural Resource class, with the delays, their class time was cut in half on the only two instructional days I had with them. I had to adapt my lessons to include the same content, but in a shorter time. On the day of our cancelation I redid one of my lessons in order to get back on track for the rest of the week so that I would not have to change my sub-plans for Thursday and Friday while I was not in class. I used my available resources and remembered a great activity I learned about in Outdoor School and refreshed my memory by looking it up in Project WILD. Then the following day had a two hour delay, so class was shortened. We were still able to play a valuable round of "Oh Deer!" but did not have all the time I wanted to go over it with them. Because of the shortened time there was no way I was going to lecture like I planned, so instead we did a think, pair, share with a couple of important concepts. I think that this actually worked better than it would have if I had lectured like I had planned. It really got the kids thinking critically and excited for the coming lessons. This week the schedule has been a challenge, but not totally in a bad way, I was able to learn from it and push forward to a new week!

One TV to Another-Visit to Tri-Valley

On Feb. 19th I had the opportunity to visit a fellow cohort member and their classes. I visited Amanda Forstater and Gretchen Dingman at Tri-Valley High School to take a deeper look into their program. While talking with my cooperating teacher, Nicole Weaver, we thought it would be good to take a look at a program that is very different than Twin Valley. Twin Valley offers classes in Animal Science, Aquaculture, Ag Leadership, Ag Science, Natural Resources, and Horticulture, while Tri-Valley offers a variety of Ag Mechanic classes, Ag Science, and Vet Science. I was also able to talk with them about how a single teacher program operates compared to a dual teacher program. I noticed while observing Amanda, that her students were much different from mine, I never had any issues keeping students on task or having them participate. Her students on the other had were testy and were harder to engage. I watched her use multiple strategies as well as a cool interest approach for egg grading, to get her students excited and ready for the lesson! I also saw her implement a new seating charts as well. She was having some issues with students talking during class and a couple of other issues. It was interesting to see her students react to it. Ms. Dingman even had to talk to the classes about the issues. Because my visit was early in the semester, she only taught a portion of the classes and had not started her full class load, I was also able to observe Amanda's cooperating teacher. It was interesting to see the way the classes worked, and all of the were working on completing the projects.   I thought it was really interesting to see another program that was different from the others I have seen, I left Tri-Valley with new ideas that I could incorporate into my own classes!

Week 5 - Put to the Test

In my 5th week of student teaching, this was one of the toughest for me. I definitely broke out of my comfort zone while working with the Horticulture class this week during the start of our Floriculture Unit! We had quite a few struggles this week with early dismissals and delays, but we managed to get through the material. The hardest part was seeing the look on the kid's face when we had to tell them that most of our plants froze over night and we weren't sure if we would be able to finish our centerpieces and vase designs. I learned a lot about being flexible and changing plans at the very last minute. On Friday when class was just getting ready to start I had kids go to the greenhouse which we modified into a cooler for our fresh cut flowers to retrieve their started centerpieces. But, when the students got to their arrangements most of their flowers were frozen solid. As we brought them to the classroom it was pretty obvious most of the plants were going to need replaced. So Mrs. Weaver and I discussed it and decided to take the remaining flowers and start with our vase designs so that the aqua foam could thaw enough to finish the centerpieces with whatever plants we might have left. Fortunately most of the plants in our buckets survived and were usable, however because of the freeze we did not have enough carnations for the planned design. We gave the students creative liberties and helped make suggestions for appropriate substitutions for the flowers, and the students persevered and made some Awesome vases and bouquets!

Above are members of the class with some of the items produced during class!

 

 

In my other classes we had our Unit 1 exams. For a review in Ag Science, we had our very own quiz bowl! Most of the students had never even heard of quiz bowl, but by the end were really enjoying it. The winning team members received 3 bonus points on their final exam! They had blast playing and were pretty active in writing down questions during the review so they could study for the exam. After they took the exams and I had the opportunity to grade them, I decided that I need to talk to a few of the students one on one and figure some things out. I know of a couple of students who seem active when I approach them during class, however their exam scores reflect otherwise. I want to take the time to talk to them and see what is going on so I can better prepare them for the next Unit!

 

In Natural Resources we also took our final exam and finished our final projects. Because of the weather conditions through the week and the effect on class time we were not able to review as a class, during one of our wrap-ups I gave the class an opportunity to ask any outstanding questions on the material covered. They took advantage by asking pretty specific questions about what they thought might be on the test I assured them that if they were present in class and active in discussions that the test should not be a problem for any of them.

 

While making the exams for both classes I also had the chance to sit with Mrs. Weaver and discuss how to make modified exams.  This was pretty interesting to me, and I always wondered how it was done! Mrs. Weaver and I did the Ag Science modified exams together and then I work on Natural Resources on my own and showed her what I came up with. After making a few adjustments on my draft, the exams were ready to be administered.

Week 4: The Shell Has Cracked

This week started as every other week with some snow related schedule changes. But I am pretty used to altering my lessons to fit the reduced time, so its not that big of an issue anymore! In my Ag Science class we learned about FFA and set up SAE projects. Mrs. Weaver and I gave each student an interest survey and sat down with each individual while the rest of the class watch videos on what SAE is and how awesome SAE projects can be! We sat with the first three students together and I observed how she talked to them and what types of questions she asked. After I picked up what I needed to do, we separated and each talked to a student. The first couple students I talked to on my own went ok, but I still had to ask a few questions to Mrs. Weaver! After I got the hang of it, it was a lot of fun and I think my students are going to have some awesome projects! We spent the next day in the computer lab and showed them how to use AET. The students were a little rowdy, but we made sure that they followed all the steps correctly as we walked around the room making sure that they were on the correct screen and following along. After we got the class set up and class was over, I asked Mrs. Weaver about FFA members and how many of them had SAE projects, she wasn't sure and directed me to ask Mr. Dietrich. That evening I accompanied Mr. Dietrich and a student to the county interview contest and talked with him about it. He mentioned that he is not very familiar with AET and has not had any students approach him about setting up and SAE, I asked him how I can help! He gave me the go ahead to talk with students and if they were interested to start their SAE with them! The next day I spoke to both of my other classes and had 8 students extremely interested in starting SAE as soon as possible! For the first time in my student teaching I was excited and looking forward to something. I have been in a bit of a funk for the past two weeks, but this was just what I needed!

 

On Monday, we did a "tragedy of the commons" activity, we ran out of time at the end of class for a good wrap up (something I need to time manage better). So the bell work for the following day was look at the data collected during the activity and compare notes with a neighbor. After they looked at each others data, we talked about what happened as a class! They were great, and came to all of the concepts that I was hoping to reach! We spent about 15 minutes discussing it, after we finished, I placed them into teams and gave them a topic for debate! Their topic was fracking in PA, the teams were for and against, not matter how they really felt about the subject. I was worried that the students wouldn't take it seriously and the debate might fail. I showed them a unbiased documentary so they knew more about what fracking actually was, and gave them the rest of the class to work with their team and complete some research.  The following day I showed them two biased videos, one for, and one against and allowed them to have a 10 minute work session before the debate began! During this whole debate process, I tried to make it student centered as much as possible and let them figure it our and use their brains. I gave them an agenda and rules for how the debate was going to be organized, but other than that, they were to figure it out.

Next week, I am most excited for Horticulture as we start into our floriculture unit. Each student will be making a corsage, a uniform centerpiece, and a centerpiece of choice! In the other two classes we will be finishing up Unit 1, and having reviews, quiz bowls, and unit exams!