Week 2

 

This week brought with it a crazy wintery mix, I lost the first two days to cancellations.  We finally had school on Wednesday even though we had a delay.  Thanks to the delay, I only had thirty minute periods.  My plan for the day was therefore changed to accommodate it.  I ended up doing a super cool activity that the students really enjoyed.  It was called getting to know your teacher.  This is an activity that I would definitely do again.  Additionally it is an activity that I would be inclined to do with all of my first year classes.  I typed up 19 facts about "me", and made a PowerPoint presentation of pictures to go along with it.  The student took turns coming up and picking out one of the facts and then drawing it on a sheet of butcher paper.  During the activity I told the students that they may want to take notes because they will want to know these things... Needless to say no one choose to take notes and while being engaged they were not committing these things to knowledge.  The second half of this activity was a "pop" quiz the next day.  The students weren't super happy to find this out when they came into class on Thursday.  However, I told them that they could use their notes and the posters they created the day before.  I had several purposes to this activity and I really think it payed off!  After the students finished the quiz, I told them that the quiz would count and they sighed.  I then proceeded to tell them that 10 points would count and then other 10 were bonus points, they smiled.  I proceeded to then explain to them that everything counts and that if we are doing an activity that they need to be engaged like my expectations show.  I also told them that when I say they should "take notes" or that they "will want to know this" I do mean it and that taking notes may have advantages.  To finally get to my point the reason that I was the most pleased with this activity was its result.  After our "talk" I passed out a notes outlines for the lecture on ruminant digestion.  Every student took notes and was engaged in the lecture!

Friday however was the best!  It was lab time,  the students picked up packets as they entered the room.  They immediately engaged in the bell work, when the bell rang I started the video interest approach.  This worked really well, there was some chatter however when the video started it ended.  The answer to the bell work was in the video and at the conclusion we discussed it.  The cool thing was that I had several youtube videos that I wanted to show pieces and thanks to AEE413 I knew how to create one video!!  It worked great definitely a technique I plan to use in the future!  Following the video I had a series of questions that connected topics in the video to things from Thursdays class and to today's lab.  I then separated them into 3 groups and gave them instructions for completing the lab.  I designed the lab packets to reflect the problem solving approach, my focus was on critical thinking.  I noticed that the students were looking for easy answers and not digging into the material.  But that was not the case today!  My plan came together wonderfully, however if I get to teach it again I am going to set it up that I do an introductory lesson and give them all of the instructions and let them do one of the three stations on one day and then do the other two stations the next day.  This was something that I got a chance to discuss with my supervisor after the first two sections so when I taught the third section I only had the students work through two stations.  This gave me about 4-5 minutes at the end of class to bring them back to their seats and pull it all together before they left.  The three stations were determining energy content, determining dry matter and finally particle size.  This also happened to be my first observation visit and I could not have been happier with the results for it being my 4th day teaching!!

I am looking forward to next week and trying more new and interesting activities!

Week 1

This was a rather dry week overall, I observed for the first 4 days.  We had 2 delays due to weather,  one of them happened to be today..  Today was my first day to take on teaching and it was the first day of the semester.  The observations went well since it was the end of the semester students were simply finishing projects.  The classes were kind of all over the place on where they were at.  The main things I noticed is that neither Mr. Wallace or Mr. Schirmer utilize bellwork or post their objectives.  Mr. Wallace and I discussed this and he told me that due to switching and sharing rooms they tend to run out of time.  He also told me since I would be taking my classes from the beginning of the semester that I could start the students out the way I wanted. 

I did have the opportunity to work with one student independently with the AET record book system.  The student was having problems entering journal entries and Mr. Wallace said he really didn't know much about the system.  I volunteered to try to help since I received some training in AEE 311.  I was really happy to be able to help the student work through the problem.  He was happy and realized it was easier than he thought.  I also got to help some other students who were working on FFA stuff.  I really enjoyed getting to work with students individually.

Finally today was a 2 hour delay which shortened the periods to 28 minutes each.  This definitely throw a monkey wrench into my plans.  Mr. Schirmer started each of my 3 animal science classes off with paperwork, I had the last 15 minutes to introduce myself and go over my expectations, procedures and consequences.  I found myself in an interesting situation, I had planned to start into content however with the time constraints I couldn't.  Overall I was happy with the day and I am super excited to get into content on Monday!

2014 Pa State Farm Show

The State Farm Show is a family tradition that is still going strong after 98 years!  My trip to the farm show began early Monday morning when Mohawk and Wilmington loaded the coach bus amidst a wintery mess.  School was cancelled however, the FFA pushed forward for Harrisburg.  There were around 25 students from each school and like national FFA convention it was a blast! 

The kids were good,  the main thing I learned from this experience is to keep them busy!  Upon arrival we took the students to the hotel to change and then took them to the Mid-Winter Convention.  Mohawk did not have any degree or jacket recipients but Wilmington did.  Wilmington had degrees, awards, star candidates and jacket recipients.  Our first night there the kids had the square dance competition.  We had 2 teams one winning blue and the other red!  The kids did a great job and had put a lot of effort into preparing!



However, upon returning to the hotel after the competition the kids were still full of energy!  It was too late to take them anywhere else and we had to take them back to change.  The lesson here is to have busy days!  I believe that the best idea is to have them involved in as many activities as possible.  The students need to have a direction and purpose to each trip.  I think every student should be involved and have a worthy purpose for attending.

We did not have a demonstration team however Wilmington did and we watched that.  They did great and I had a chance to stay to watch Blackhawks demo team too.  I was very impressed with how well the students did with their demo's. 

Following the demo's we took the kids to Outback Toys and then to Shady Maple Smorgasbord and ended the night at Bass Pro Shop.  On Wednesday we took the students to Gettysburg,  it was an extremely interesting and educational visit.  The students seemed to both engage and enjoy the experience!

 

It was great to not only interact with the students but also with the parents who traveled to watch their kids compete.  The parent communication was extremely beneficial!  I was really happy to get to talk to the mother of one of my challenging boys.  She tagged along just to keep an eye on him and I am happy that I was able to open up that communication on a positive tone!!