Community Based Unit of Instruction

For my community based unit of instruction I choose to do a showmanship clinic.  The clinic was a huge success, we had over 65 participants.  The students learned about showing and raising livestock in class we spent 10 class sessions throughout my internship on this material specifically.



Additionally, I spent numerous hours making contacts within the industry.  The most time consuming portion of the clinic was getting 4H approval for the good production practices(GPP) portion of the instruction.  I finally contacted the regional education coordinator Patty Anderson.  She required that she meet all presenters and conduct a meeting and dry run of what material would be taught.  After meeting with presenters she finally gave her blessing and agreed to sign off on these students having received proper training.



The other set of contacts I had to make was to secure enough industry professionals to help the Mohawk students teach showmanship.  When everything was said and done I had 5 beef showmanship, 3 sheep and goat, and 3 swine presenters.  These people worked side by side with the Mohawk students to delivery an industry leading showmanship clinic.



The next phase of the clinic was to provide secure enough finds in order to provide a free lunch to all participants.  My students and I, contacted dozens of area business'.  We provided them with information about the clinic and donation forms.  When the final numbers were in we received finds funds from 12 businesses for a total of $725!



The clinic was amazing, I was incredibly happy with it.  The only thing I can say is that it was it was extremely exhausting.  In the future I will be sure to put more emphasis into having the students take ownership of the process.  There is no reason that they could not have made all the contacts and arrangements.  The process would have been more beneficial to my students if they had been responsible for  contacting the people and scheduling everything.

Mohawk Amazing!!!

 

My time at Mohawk has been truly a life changing experience!

On the first day I picked up my badge and that was when I realized this is really happening and these people are going to trust me with their kids!!

#1- The student teaching internship seems like a long time.  You think you have all kinds of time to get stuff done... WRONG!  The time flies by and before I knew it, it was over.

Mohawk has taught me so many things, most of all they have showed me the utmost respect and given me every opportunity that I can imagine.

I have always believed that the Ag Department was special.  When I was in high school Ag was the class kids took who did not fit in else where.  However, I have learned during student teaching the Ag is where EVERYONE belongs.  Through agriculture education we are able to provide students with real world experience and skills that will allow them to succeed in the workplace.  It is simple college is not every for everyone.  Agricultural education lets us equip students with skills that they can use to get a job.  Sometimes that job may become their career other times that first job is simply a gateway to bigger and better things.

The animal science curriculum allowed me to make cross curricular connects.  Agriculture lets us teach students in the classroom the theory then move outside and work with real animals.  I have worked with every level of students and I have realized that IEP students make me work harder.  I have found that I truly believe and encompass the motto: Every Student, Every Class, Every Day.  The high level students are easy to teach, however the lower level students become more challenging.  I do not feel like I have had a successful class period unless I had every students attention.

The Final Week...

Well here it is the last and final week...

This week the students in Animal Science Presented their final projects on Monday and Tuesday.  The students did an outstanding job and I was completely shocked when one of the best projects was on rats!

Having 3 days left in the week I really wanted to make a statement and go out with a bang!  I gave the students a range of options and they choose the topic of horse judging as the final lessons.  Horses are really my things I have a wealth of knowledge in livestock but I was basically born and raised on a horse.  Thus, this was the absolute easiest lesson I have prepared for.  The lesson was fantastic and the students were so interested.  I find myself working harder to make judging interesting more than any other topic.  I have found myself pondering why that is and I have come to the conclusion.  I always found judging intriguing and challenging however, I was bored out of my mind when I was taught it in high school.  Thus, that experience has pushed me to make students love judging.  Wednesday became an extremely special day for not only because of that lesson but because my former Ag teacher came to visit me.  He is the reason I decided to teach agriculture.  He made a difference in my life and motivated me to make a difference in another child's life.  Having him observe my teaching and tell me how proud he was of me made my entire day.  It was also great to get talk to him as teacher verse a student.  I learned a lot of things and little tricks throughout the day!  Thursday was my capstone,  I got up at 5 a.m. to load horses to bring the students.  I was so excited that even though it was early the chance to bring a lesson to life like that had me pumped!  The students were super excited and I was extremely happy because EVERY student correctly distinguished between the top and bottom pair in the class!  We even had several visitors come out to see our class and the horses.



The Building Construction class is making great progress on their drywall project.  Every group has the drywall cut and screwed up.  They have either one or two coats of spackle on the wall and now are on to the sanding and perfection part.



My advanced welding students have their test plates almost complete and with any luck they will finish them before I leave... Fingers Crossed!!



FRIDAY

Today I did a huge cook out for all the Ag classes.  They ate 15lbs of hamburger, 10lbs of Lamb, 5lbs of Sausage, 3 cakes, 48 cup cakes, 36 muffins, 8 bags of chips.  Yes, it takes a lot of food to feed ag kids!  It was an amazing day that I will never forget.  My students were amazing and I am really going to miss them!

Wow it's really almost over :(

Well here it is, my second to last week.  I have been putting off this blog since it is making it so real that I am going to have to leave these kids...  Student teaching has been amazing and this week was no exception!

Animal Science

This week has been slightly different from the rest.  The kids have been working throughout the course on a final project.  The final project is a farm business plan.  They are responsible for describing the health, nutrition, management, breeding and budgeting.   The students are doing great and are really going into great detail with the project.  However, their desire to go into detail is causing the project to require more time than previously anticipated.  Thus, the students had this entire week to complete the project.  They did a great job and on Thursday I gave them a preliminary grade using the rubric provided.  The preliminary grade was a great idea and really helped the students pin point what they needed to do.  The major theme I found was that the students were struggling with the budget.  Specially on the pin pointing projected profits.  In the future I will spend time teaching budgeting. 

Additionally, my CDE team did great at the regional judging contests we are hoping to have the results in this coming week.  Keeping our fingers crossed they really tried hard!

Buildings

This week the students started working in the wood shop.  They are laying out drywall inside a structure that was built over there.  Their task is to measure, cut, install and finished an inside and outside corner.  The students are doing good and they have the majority of the drywall cut the next step is to cut out the electrical boxes.  The project is going well, however there are two 7th grades classes over there during our period which makes it tricky.

Advanced

This class has truly turned into my favorite class.  I love working with these guys, they are dedicated and committed to a successful welding career.  The boys are almost done with the test plates and will have the plates finished this week.
 

Week 11.. I think winter has finally broke!

Monday

AnSc

Today's lesson was on the spread of disease and the PED pig virus.  This was an activity I found in a lab aid kit that Jessie shared.  The activity required special test solutions and test tubes however I was able to modify the activity to utilize the supplies available.  I used florescent power and splenda in the cups then I black light to test the cups.  The kids loved the activity and were really shocked about how easily one person could infect so many.  They also were very intrigued by the detective hunt to decide who the culprit was!

Buildings

Today the students finished cleaning up the room and installed the trim work.  The room came out great and the student are really proud of what they accomplished.

Welding

The students are continuing the make progress on their test plates and we are hoping that they will be complete by the end of next week.

Tuesday

*Today I had a job interview so the students were either working on their projects or helping get the shop ready for sausage production tomorrow

Wednesday

All classes were making sausage, the students were instructed on safety and procedures and then put to work.  We processed about 3,000 lbs and pork into sausage the net income from the fundraiser is around $7500.

Thursday

All classes worked to clean and reorganize the shop.

Friday

Animal Science

Worked on stuff for the showmanship clinic; they made posters, fliers, thank you's, schedules, sign-in sheets.  The group worked extremely well and the clinic was flat awesome on Saturday!!  We had 85 registered attendee's, there were ten presenters that worked with the Mohawk students to deliver a wonderful clinic.  I have heard nothing but good things from everyone that was there!

Buildings/Welding

Both classes worked to get the shop back in working order and to put the ham's into the curing solution so that they could be smoked on Monday.


*It was a completely crazy week!  What would I change?  Well for starters, if it had been my program I would have never scheduled both the sausage fundraiser and the clinic in the same week.  However, time is always at a premium and making things work/happen is part of the job!  The sausage fundraiser is vital to the program however, by the time it was done there was almost an entire week of instruction lost to it.  I felt like there had to be a better way to get things rapped up and the students back to work sooner.  

Week 10- The sadness of the end is really setting in...

Animal Science

Monday and Tuesday

I have been running behind since the beginning due to snow days.  Thus, I was given a copy of the American Meat video and after previewing it realized it was an opportunity to make up time.  I constructed a worksheet that went along with the video.  After the first section which lined up nicely with the length of the period, I allowed the students to vote on whether they wanted to see the 2nd half or not.  All three classes were very engaged and all voted to see the second half.  This a great way to make up time,  the video killed 4 of the lessons in the unit plan in 2 days.  However, what would I change?  I would leave this assignment and lesson for a substitute to teach.  I felt as though I could have been covering other material and the video would have been great when a non-agriculture teacher was there.

Wednesday   

This was my final observation and I was teaching pig ear notching.  I was really happy with the lesson and the students seemed to truly enjoy it.  However, the classes were out of order due to PSSA testing and my 3rd period class met during 1st period.  Apparently kids are like animals and changing their normal routine makes them wacky.

Thursday   

We worked on swine judging, we started by reviewing the information used to judge livestock.  I was impressed by thrilled that on the third round of judging the students finally knew the 5 characteristics.  It is my belief that when students when students follow a set of guidelines for judging the results are much more uniform.

Friday

Today was only a half day, but it was super awesome because I brought in real live pigs for the students to judge.  They were happy to once again have real animals to work with.  The pigs behaved like perfect angels and everything ran smoothly.  Unfortunately, I only had 2 pigs to bring since the third ended up in my freezer during SLLC.  Due to the PED virus I wasn't about to ask another producer to bring me pigs.  Although, my change to today lesson would be having four pigs for a complete class.

Building Constructions

This week the students finished spackling the wall in the high school PTO office.  Additionally, today they completed painting it.  We are looking forward to next week, we will be starting to work on drywall on a frame structure.  This will allow students to work at their own pace and they will be given more freedom to work independently with less direction. 

Advanced Mechanics

My kids are making great progress on their test plates, I am hoping that they will be done by the end of next week.

Additionally, it has been a busy week!  Tuesday I had a meeting with the GPP presenters for the showmanship clinic.  We met with the regional 4H coordinator to make sure everyone was on the same page.  Then on Thursday night I had a student stay after to work on his weld test plate.  Later that night I attended a special swine committee meeting at the Lawrence County Fairgrounds.  We were deciding on a recommendation to give the fair board regarding swine at the fair.  Finally to finish the week I met with the Livestock, Dairy and finally Horse Judging Teams to prepare them for contests.

Week 9- More great experiences

Monday

Animal Science

The students worked to complete the beef EPD project.  The groups all had there 10 females picked out and only needed to choose a sire.  I decided to incorporate the next level of our reproduction topic into the assignment.  Instead of simply choosing the best bull offered in the sale, I had the students pick a bull off the Genex website.  This game them more choices and the actually took the task quite serious comparing EPDs back and forth.

Building Construction

Supplies came in Friday and the students were able to get started on the project.  This renovation and completion project entails a large amount of demonstrations.  The students are getting to perform the majority of the work.  However, Mr. Wallace and myself are spending most of the time demonstrating.

Advanced Single Cylinder/Welding

We are continuing to get mowers in that need serviced.  Thus, Mr. Schirmer and I are splitting the class so that we are able to keep all students actively engaged.  The students on the welding side are doing a great job their level of commitment and dedication to doing these test plates properly is incredible! 

Tuesday

Animal Science

I started the class by reviewing the information required for the nutrition and health portions of the final project.  I then showed the students my "final project" presentation, following it up with I would not ask you to do something that I have not.  The students seemed to connect better by being able to see a finished product.  The ideas, depth of information and interest in this final summative assessment is mind blowing.  When I developed this project I hoped I could hook my students into having half the level of interest in it that I did.  However, I think I ended up getting twice the level of excitement back that I gave they completely love working on this project.

Building Construction

The students spent the period first sanding the spackle they applied Monday and were able to put a second coat on.  There are still some holes and seems that are going to need one more day.  They didn't get a lot done the previous day after demonstrations.

Advanced Single Cylinder/Welding

The same structure was followed as the previous day.  My young men are doing great however, on their second pass down the bevel they are starting to have some issues.  The guys have a good attitude are learning that it is more about doing it right than speed that they do it.


























Wednesday---- Evaluation Day----

However, not the evaluation that probably jumps into your mind first.  I was fortunate enough to have Blackhawk HS observing me for the last two periods of the day.  It went great and they said that they will be touch for an interview!

Animal Science

The topic in my unit plan was the estrous cycle and the use of CIDRs.  To be completely honest I wasn't sure that I really wanted to teach that on this day.  However, since that was what was in the plan next I decided to go for it!  In reflection, I think it was a good idea because it truly pushed me to make it an awesome lesson!

This comic is the result of 3 hours spent on Bitstrips trying to make the Estrous cycle interesting and easy to understand.  I believe the results were well worth the work!  My students seemed to be able to relate to the comic.  By the way the comic idea was stole from Todd during our meeting Friday!

Additionally, I have to add when you put 2 high school principles, 1 district administrator and as many as 3 teachers into a room of 12 students everyone sits up straight and participates.  My principle sat down beside one the IEP students who has been causing a lot of problems and do you know what....  For the first time he sat up straight, took notes, answered questions and became a "model" student.  To be honest it truly confirmed me suspicions that his main problem is a lack of motivation.

Buildings

Class went well the students were sanding and spackling again, they are making good progress and I would expect the project to be complete by Monday.

Advanced

This class was also observed by the pack of administrators.  These kids work well everyday however, they certainly put their best foot forward for me.  We started class off by looking at x-ray films and the other types of weld tests that we have available.  Blackhawk found this class particularly interesting since it was something they weren't aware fell into the general Ag description. 

Thursday

Animal Science
 
After a pretty intense Wednesday I decided to relax things a bit with a jeopardy game.  This time the topic was pheno-typic beef cattle selection.  I divided the class into 4 groups and it went great.  The main things I learned is that games are fun but sometimes students can get a little too into the competition verse the content.

Buildings

6th period has their side of the wall just about complete however, period 5 has some work to do still.  Its interesting to see how differently the two groups work.

Advanced

The group working on mowers had completed everything that they had to do, so everyone was welding again.

Friday

Well today I took a "personal" day on the recommendations of Mr. Wallace and Mr. Schirmer.  I decided to apply to the C-L position.  Both felt it would be best for me to take the day off and visit the school.  I agreed so I made an appointment with the Principle.  This was a great day, I have to say it is really awesome when schools that are hiring are willing to take time to show the facilities and introduce to the people you would be working with.  I thought the closing date seemed quick on the position, however I was further surprised to find out that they are planning on interviewing in two weeks.