Week 4- "The Juggling Act"

Well this week was hectic to say the least!

My weekend was not a recuperation since we were at ACES, however it was fun.

On Monday my animal science II class was making feeds!  The students worked throughout last week developing rations and learning how the different feed-stuffs worked together.


This activity was a lot of fun and the students really enjoyed it HOWEVER, it took a ton of time to plan and gather all the supplies.  Additionally, it wasn't cheap the up side to that is that I am going to be able to use the feeds and extra's at home.  I did learn that this is an activity that I would definitely do again, but I would put it into the budget!


Additionally from a teaching stand point, there were several things that the students took away from this activity that added to the learning.  My favorite part of this was however, that 100% of the students were actively participating and working independently!!

Tuesday brought an end to the nutrition part of the small ruminants unit.  I started this day with Dr. Foster's good and bad cookies.  The students had questioned the need to have exact measurements and know the feed components.  The cookies really drove home the idea that both things are important, however I don't think my students trust me as much now!  This day is probably one of my most frustrating.  I developed a quiz that I believe was extremely simple.  The students were told for at least a week that they would be required to identify the various feed-stuffs on the quiz and they were given time to study them.  Before the quiz I did an around the world review, I posted the quiz questions on paper and had them answer the questions with markers.  We went over the answers and then they took the quiz.  I was upset that the average was a 75% when I literally gave them the answers minutes before they took it.  Well that is my major vent for the week!

Wednesday we discussed sheep and goat management and production.  I brought in a large tote bag filled with supplies for lambing, breeding and management.  We did a few slides with some basics about sheep and then I pulled out my bag of goodies.  The students gathered around me and were really excited to see what I was going to pull out next.  I never thought a simple "bag of goodies" could get their attention so well.  Mr. Wallace is on vacation and I asked him if I could start a unit on soldering with his building construction classes.  Walking into that class without him being there was interesting.  The students were not anticipating me teaching them but were very receptive to me (it was me or worksheets...).  

Finally came Thursday, I have been dying to get to bring in animals.  I brought in 2 ewes and their lambs.  Wednesdays lesson included the topics of tagging, docking, castration, and vaccinations.  Thus, instead of just showing a video I decided to do demonstrations using "real" sheep.  The students loved it, I found it very interesting that the students were focused on what I was doing and not distracted by the fact there were animals in the ag shop.  The students loved it and I really feel that they learned a lot from it too.  The major thing I learned was that I need to talk less, because between talking over the sheep and ventilation system I lost my voice in the middle of the day.  This led me to alter the order of my lesson plan for the buildings class.  I was planning to do a demonstration at the beginning of the class.  Due to my voice I had them cut all their pipe first and then I did the demo.  This worked really well, what I learned was that I need to talk less and make students talk or work instead.