Tuesday, December 8, 2015

AEE 412 Lab Recap

During the course of this semester, I have certainly had my ups and downs with Lab; however, the teaching lab component was definitely helpful in understanding my teaching style.

Have I grown as a professional?

I have learned a lot throughout the semester from different teaching methods and styles to classroom management techniques to anything in between.

Personally, I feel that I have improved in the Labs, although a few of them have knocked me down as I struggled in searching for my own methods of instruction. Yet, these labs do provide those who want to eventually be agricultural educators with very beneficial growth as it provides a mock session of what really goes on in the classroom.

What can make lab better?

Enforcing roleplaying would have definitely helped me out more. My lab did not grasp roleplaying as a student, and it in turn did not prepare me well enough as I completed my LifeKnowledge and Microteaching lessons.

Below is my highlight video created showing one of Rosenshine and Furst Characteristice of Teaching Efeectiveness which I feel that I did a good job of completing. Feel free to check it out.



Saturday, December 5, 2015

#TeachAgChat Reflection

It was the day after Thanksgiving when I started thinking about the other assignments outside of lesson plans, units plans, and assessments that were due in the final leg of the semester. Oh yeah, the #TeachAgChat was just 6 days away!

After gathering some information, I decided to take on the lead and contact our given list of experts. I figured that they would have that weekend to check their email to confirm their attendance in our upcoming chat. Out of the 12 possible expert emails that I sent out, I heard back from five people; two of those denied the invitation to join our chat. I was thankful to hear back from Steve Brown, Cory Epler, and Ryan Foor from various parts of the U.S. that they were willing to share their expertise on our subject of "cultivating student dispositions for 21st century agriculture careers". A few days later, we had another expert confirming his attendance from the PA Farm Bureau, Scott Sheely. We had 4 experts, Great!

Now, our topic was a mouthful, certainly, so I did a bit of research on the topic over the weekend, and collaborated with my #TeachAgChat team, Kelsey Henry and Rachel Spicher, about how we should approach these questions and resources. We came up with 8 questions, but were still unsure if they were 'stellar', so I sought advise from Dr. Daniel Foster. Certain enough, he was able to point our group in the right direction on trying to make this a success. Once we had our question, I created the infographic (pictured to the right) to share it out to everyone wanting to attend.

After we had our questions, I sent a group message out for roles. We cannot have a decent Twitter chat without set roles for our moderators. Kelsey was set as our greeter and calling out to others as they answered questions. Rachel was to share our own resources for particular questions and follow up to others answers. I was to call out to others and in charge of running the @TeachAgPSU Twitter account.

Pretty soon it was December 3rd, and on December 3rd we ordered pizza. Now, when our group arrived to 214 Ferguson to conduct the chat, we were thrown off by how many people were there. The room was very crowded and I need my own bubble to work. After we were thrown into the room in the corner, we got our computers uploaded, poured ourselves a glass of soda, ate a slice of pizza, and pretty soon we were 10 minutes away.

I was very pleased that our experts made their appearance from the very first question and stuck with us through the very end. I cannot thank them enough for sharing some great input on our topic.Pretty soon, in a blink of an eye, it was over. We have over 50 people participate in our chat and over 500 tweets that went out over the course of that one hour.

This was an interesting experience was Twitter. Interested in seeing what went on during our chat? Check out our Storify HERE!

Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Life Knowledge Lesson

This morning, I made the travel to Derry, PA to teach an FFA Life Knowledge lesson to the students. Being that I was to teach two classes of freshmen students, I decided to not go into the advanced Life Knowledge choices; however, I stuck with some introducing knowledge. The lesson I chose to teach today was titled "Defining Leadership" and I felt it was most appropriate to teach to two classes of Introduction to Agriculture/Horticulture freshmen.

I was nervous when I stood in front of the class that seated the 12 students in 1st period at 7:50 in the morning. It was a crisp morning and an early-dismissal day for students to start their Thanksgiving break, so you can say that their minds were thinking of mashed potatoes, turkey, and other festivities. 

After morning announcements, the students went to the barn to care for their chickens for the first ten minutes of class. I could already tell that this class would be like pulling teeth. Mr. Campbell ended his class announcements with "...and now, Ms. Sessamen is going to teach you about life." I smiled when the students sighed at the thoughts of some random student coming into their class for the day to teach them about life. Well, I directed them to the board where I had the Bellwork written for them to complete on scratch paper. What was the Bellwork?

List 2 opportunities you recently had to influence someone in a positive manner.

They were given three minutes to complete it.

After the three minutes ran out, I explained that I did not know anyone there, so we are each going to share our names and one of our influences we captured on our sheet to the Bellwork. I introduced myself and gave an example, then I let them go around the room with introduction. Grant it, I am no good at memorizing names, but I had about 3-4 of 1st period down in my head.

We went on about the class by separating into 4 groups, and each group was now stranded on an island. Each group was given a list of terms that are typically used to describe leaders and they had to select five terms that they believe will help them in being a successful leader. They had to select a representative from each group and present their case/argument to the Ultimate Leader. The Ultimate Leader (me) then decides if their case is strong enough to let them off the island and back to civilization. Now, 1st period acted as though they never got their morning coffee, so it was hard having them getting started with the activity. But once I made my way around the different groups, they started to get the hang of things.

After the groups made it back to civilization, we defined leadership. I told the class that leadership comes in many shapes and sizes and forms and it does not have to be someone famous. I had a few volunteers share who their ideas of good leaders were and their answers were:
  • Parents
  • Teachers
  • Siblings
  • Family
  • Presidents
Exactly! Leadership is an influence-- the ability to gain followers. Their examples were right on the money!

The view right across from Derry Area High School
Being that class was coming to a close, we ended with a worksheet listing examples of leadership challenges. The students needed to list 5 different events where someone has influenced them, how they were influenced, and what the results of the influence were. This was the students "Ticket Out" and they ended getting full credit for their worksheets.

Now, 2nd period was a group of 18 students and they were a much more lively group. Certainly, this group tested my classroom management skills, but they certainly were fun to teach! They took a bit longer on the activities, but that is because they kept asking questions. I loved how they kept coming up with questions where we ended up collaborating as a class.

I actually ended up enjoying this Life Knowledge Lesson to two classes of Introduction to Ag/Hort. Talking with Mr. Campbell after the classes, we came to the conclusion that I handled the classes we. I had a presence in front of the classroom and seemed to enjoy just being there, and my clarity of instruction has certainly improved.

Sunday, November 22, 2015

Classroom Management



Oh joy. Something that certainly most (if not all) teachers and student teacher worry about, classroom management. Now, there are many techniques used in the classroom for teachers to achieve smooth sailing throughout the school year.

I found this article of 21 Tips and Tricks in Classroom Management that I feel everyone who is planning on teaching should know. It helps with defining the techniques to use when a student gets their assignments done early to modeling desired behavior.

Whenever I started my 4-H club, I wanted my members to view me as the instructor and someone they feel comfortable enough to talk to with their projects. I constantly strive to build up confidence and engagement in my members at each and every meeting. Certainly, it can be tough whenever the kids are a little rowdy and wound up on snacks and sugar, but I manage to pull them back together.

Overall, we need to learn that we will get the hang of the classroom with time. It will not happen right away, but it will certainly happen.

Microteaching with the Pirates


I was excited to be able to teach the Introduction to Ag/Horticulture class from Tuesday thru Thursday. While observing them on Monday, I realised that this class was not the rowdiest bunch of the day; however, it was the LAST class of the day. Keeping their attention instead of having them thinking about the countdown to go home would certainly be one of my main struggles. Another struggle I was going to have was having the students call me "Ms. Sessamen". I did not know that I was going to be teaching students who I used to be in 4-H with, and they obviously knew me by my first name.

This past week, I had the opportunity to observe and microteach at the home of the Pirates, aka Williamsburg Area High School. I spent Monday observing classes with Ms. Royer and Mrs. Gouger to see what we were getting ourselves into over the course of the next three days.

On my first day (Tuesday), we went over the parts of the emblem. We discussed the five symbols of the FFA Emblem and researched their meanings. I ended up having a mishap with the copier earlier that morning, so I was unable to get copies of the worksheet I wanted my students to fill out with each emblem symbol and their meanings. Instead, I had them take a blank sheet of paper and create the worksheet themselves. I think that having them create their own worksheet ended up working out for the better as they demonstrated their ability to follow directions, which they ended up doing pretty well. At the end of the class, I decided to have a little bit of fun and have each student design their own FFA Emblem. How did they do that? With COOKIES of course! We had vanilla wafers, icing, sprinkles, food coloring, and an assortment of items for them to be as creative as they wish. The best part was being able to eat their emblem as the bell rang.

Wednesday consisted of learning about FFA officers and their responsibilities. This was a rather informational lesson with a PowerPoint of each officer position and learning the officer parts. I ended up having a PowerPoint worksheet to ensure that the students were able to follow along during the lecture, and we ended up going over it at the end of class.

On my final day, we had another informational lesson with going over FFA Official Dress and reviewing everything that we went over while I was microteaching with them. We did not have a sample of the entire official dress, but we did have an assortment of ties and a sample of the official jacket. We discussed the "Dos and Don'ts" of FFA Official Dress and had the students select the appropriate attire when it came to ties/scarves (since that is what we had available). We ended my microteaching journey with a review game of everything that we went over that week while I was there. I divided the class into two groups and we had each team show their knowledge in our review game.

Overall, the students were great. I had an exciting group of 8th-10th grade students who seemed to enjoy being in class. I wish, however, that this microteaching experience was offered earlier in the semester (or even in a previous semester) so we can actually understand what it is that we student teachers are getting ourselves into.

Saturday, November 14, 2015

Inquiry Based Instruction- AEE 412 Lab

During the National FFA Convention this year, I had the opportunity to sit in on a teacher workshop called "The Livestock Dating Game." That workshop is where I was introduced the Inquiry Based Instruction (IBI), and once it was completed, I had many different ideas soaring through my mind as to how I can facilitate my own IBI lesson in a few of the units that need preparation.

What Did I Do?

Well, I took some time to brainstorm as to how I can incorporate IBI into the Ag Construction course where I was given two units from the Derry Ag Instructor, Mr. Campbell, to go all out an have fun with. The two units that I had the choices of were Electrical Wiring and Plumbing. Hmm... I needed to get my creative juices flowing.

I got it! I could do an activity based out of the Electrical Wiring Unit by using magnetism as the topic. Then it was time to come up with an activity. After using a few resources, I decided to have an activity where the students create a compass.

How Did it Work?

The students were given a scenario where they were lost in the woods with no cell phone and no map. They knew that their camp was in the southeastern corner of the woods and they needed to get back before sunset. Using the items in their travel pack, they needed to create something that would help them in finding their way back to camp.

Eventually, time ran out and the students had to clean up their desks as the bell was about to ring for the next period. They got super close in figuring out how to locate the poles on their magnetized paperclips, but they did not quite get there.

What are my Thoughts?

At the very end of the lesson, I had three main thoughts racing through my mind. They were as follows:

  1. Come on, Samantha, you need to be more clear in your instruction. 
    • Clarity is key! Yes, I know I have mentioned that before. Although I feel that this lesson was so much better than my other labs, I still need to be more clear. I had students as for the directions over again, and it was frustrating for myself to stop and slow down.
  2. Seriously Samantha? How can you facilitate more effectively without pacing around in circles and it seem like you're hovering over the students?
    • Even when I was rewatching my lab in the video, I got sick of watching myself pace back and forth and back and forth throughout the room. Surely, it was difficult to keep entertained as I had 1 group of students to facilitate (if I had 4-5 groups, I would not be pacing as much).
  3. Know the material! 
    • Now, Electrical Wiring is certainly not a critical part of my knowledge base. When it came to the students asking me questions about the material, I did not know how to answer them. They came up with some interesting questions, and I ended up researching the answers afterwards.
Overall

The most rewarding thing about this lesson was after it was concluded and the camera was shut off. One of the 'students' said, "I really enjoyed this, and would love for you to share this with me. I really want to do this when I student teach." Who knew? Maybe I can actually do something right every once in a while.

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Inquiry-based Learning

Last week I had the opportunity to attend the National FFA Convention (which you will be hearing more about in an upcoming post, I promise) where it was recommended to attend a teacher workshop if we were able. I was lucky enough to attend one of those workshops with my cooperating teacher, Mr. Campbell,  and we learned a lot.

The topic: The Livestock Dating Game

This was an inquiry-based lesson demonstrated by three Ag teachers from across the United States, and it taught me what Inquiry-based lessons and learning really was.

Let me tell you how it went...

The instructors asked for three male volunteers and one female volunteer to head to the front of the room. The interest approach was basically a bachelorette heifer looking for her soulmate in one of the three bulls. Each of the bulls read their descriptions and the entire class had the chance to vote for their pick of the herd.

Once that was completed, the presenters handed out some geography books and some laminated cards. We proceeded on with our activity by basically choosing which two breeds of cattle to cross that would fit the needs of a country in which each of our pairs were assigned.

We researched our country and choose a cross between a Florida Cracker and a Brahman, and the presenters went around the room to pass out results cards. These cards were random, so the results varied among each of the pairs. When that was completed, we discussed our results and were able to develop further questions from the activity.

So, what is Inquiry-based learning?

It is basically a learning process where the students are in control. The manage what they investigate, what questions to form, etc. The teacher ends up playing the role as the facilitator as they spend less time in lecture form and more time in the actually learning activity,

According to our reading, Inquiry-based learning is very beneficial for students and helps improve student success. It is obvious to see as they are actually applying their knowledge and digging deeper into the content.

In an additional article that I found (click here for article), it explains that there are definitely benefits for Inquiry-based learning. It helps in improving their science, research, and literacy skills, but there was not a significant difference between Inquiry-based and traditional curricula.

What are my Thoughts?

I really enjoyed that Inquiry-based workshop at the National FFA Convention, so I highly recommend using this tool in the classroom. Students have the ability to apply the knowledge learned from the activities to outside of the classroom, and they feel in control of their activity. Teachers can definitely take this and mold it into any shape they want and run with it!

Thursday, October 22, 2015

Problem Solving Approach- AEE 412 Lab

So, this week was actually a lab that I was really excited about. The task, I thought, was simple: present the students with a problem. They do not necessarily need to find the answer or a correct one, but we at least needed to get our problem out there.

I was really excited to continue in working on my Quality Assurance unit, so I decided to write my lesson plan with Immunizations. The task: give the students a scenario and have them solve for the correct amount of medication. Then they were able to actually administer the vaccine to their animal (and by animal, I mean fruit).

How Did it Go?

Very very poorly. My stress levels got to me, and I completely jumped around my plan. I started rushing through my directions and my scenarios. The worst part of it all, I questioned my ability to teach during my lesson.

Turns out that my lesson plan was not one to be taught in the Ag classroom. My approach was wrong, and I did not present the lesson well anyway. It felt as though I was kicked down and out for the count.

How Can I Improve?

Obviously, scratching out this lesson completely from my unit. It looks as though I will be rewriting this unit plan and figure out a new approach on everything I teach.

It was one of those labs that made me wonder if I am actually cut out to teach. I guess we shall see at the conclusion of these next two semesters.


Sunday, October 18, 2015

Evaluating Learning

Throughout their time in school, obviously, students are taking in a bunch of information from their instructor. During that time, they are being evaluated on how well they are learning such information no matter what subject it to be.

We as future Agricultural Educators have the open door of many opportunities in evaluating our students. And the great part about it is that there is no "set" way to evaluate. I absolutely love having a variety of techniques (being that I am one of those people who get bored rather quickly) to use in each of my units.

What are the Types of Evaluation?

There are two main forms of evaluation. They are classified as either formative or summative assessment. Other forms include: direct and indirect assessment.

Summative assessment includes thing such as tests and quizzes which are usually cumulative, and they include an end-of-unit grade.

Formative assessment is different in the fact that the students are constantly being graded. They are evaluated not just at the end of the unit, but in fact throughout the course. Whether it be the teacher helping them on assignments or the student answering an in-class question, assessing our students formatively is continuous.

Direct assessment is based on a student's' ability to apply their knowledge into a real-world situation. Whereas, Indirect assessment is completed after the students have taken the course; this can be conducted in a survey format.

How Will I use These Methods?

I am super excited to implement many different methods of evaluation. Call me the evil teacher, but I enjoy giving tests; however, not all of my tests are written.

I already use formative and summative assessments with my 4-H kids, so using that in the classroom should not be too much of a hassle, In my electrical unit, for example, I will be giving an assignment to have the students layout the wiring for a house with using a maximum of a certain amount of watts. Throughout the unit I can constantly test their identification knowledge by asking them to grab certain tools. 

In the case that I will be teaching students with IEPs, I plan on accommodating and modifying my assessments in the appropriate matter based on that individual students needs. I found this article that seems to have exactly what I agree with when evaluating students, which can also be changed up for exceptional learners.

Overall, I cannot wait to hand out my first assessment, whether it be to tear down and rebuild an engine or to list the function of the four stomachs in a ruminant. Here's to hoping it will all go well.

Friday, October 9, 2015

Working Towards the Future

Students will often wonder to themselves how they are going to use their schoolwork outside of the classroom later on in life. It is much easier to apply activities to the "real-world" in the Agricultural Education through activities ranging anywhere from greenhouse work to tearing apart a small gas engine.

Incorporating problem solving into our curriculum will help students in developing many needed skills that will benefit them after the bell rings. Problem solving can be used as a group or individual project, and our students can be as creative as they want.

According to one of the articles that we read, "Principles for Teaching Problem Solving" explained that there are many students who struggle and fail in literacy in their own school programs. Using problem solving techniques in the classroom will help benefit our students as it will affect them outside of school. The article stated that grown adults tend to struggle with basic skills such as determining the correct amount of change from an information menu.

It is sad that we have grown adults struggling in simple skills that they need to survive the"real-world". If they were only given the necessary tools, and proper teaching techniques through problem solving, they would have no problem counting the change out of a register.

So what did I get out of our readings? Use a variety of different problem solving techniques that requires the students to think through multiple ways of how these problems can be solved.

Here is an article that I feel really explain what problem solving is, and how it works for the students and the teachers.



From the Emblem of Washington

On Monday, October 5th, Mr. Matthew Holt (#psuaged16), Mr. Matthew Snyder (#psuaged17), and
myself took on a group of 19 new FFA Chapter Treasurers to show them the ropes on becoming successful during their role as officer.

We arrived early on the sunny Monday morning at the Blair County Convention Center to prepare ourselves for the arrival of the FFA members. Now, I have never attended Fall Leadership Conference (FLC) before, but I did know the basics as to what the students were to get out of the workshop.

Now, prior to FLC, we spent quite a bit of time in working on our lesson plan, gathering materials, and mentally preparing ourselves for the big day. There were some things that went well and some thing that, of course, could be improved on.

What Happened?

Sure enough, we could have thought of a more engaging first activity besides a Do Now 'Bellringer' type question, but it was early in the morning and we wanted to get these kids thinking. After greeting them at the door, we posed the question, "Who is one person you consider to be a good leader, and why?" We gave them close to two minutes to answer and share amongst the other officers in the room.

We had activities from drawing their own leader, to identifying receipts vs. disbursements through a kinesthetic ball activity, to even giving a mock Treasurer's Report and learning how to write a check. Soon enough, we realized that we were flying right through our lesson plan, and that we were going to run out of activities well before it was time to release the students.

How Did We Handle This?

As Mr. Holt was conducting one of this last activities, I did a little brainstorming. I ended up adding two more interactive activities. The students ended up creating an acronym for the word, "Treasurer". They had to come up with words that, obviously, related to their roles as the Treasurer and to keep it appropriate. The second filler activity I came up with was to build a roadmap. The roadmap had a 'Start' point, a long twisting and turning 'road', and a 'Finish' line. The 'Start' point was labelled 'Accepting the Role as Treasurer' and the students needed to identify the many different steps in order to get to the 'Finish' line (which was marked on our road as 'Success').

Also, we were talking about being the best officer during our Reflection Sandwich activity, and the kids were not excited about it at all. So We told them that the officer team themselves all create a sandwich. If they work hard enough, they will Be the Bacon on that sandwich. They absolutely loved that! Being that it was so close to lunch, the students reflected on how they can be better than the cheese and the tomato. Nothing is better than bacon!

How Can We Improve?

If I were given a re-do on this entire conference, there is quite a bit that I would change. I would definitely work more on communication with our shadow teacher; despite the fact that he did a great job throughout the workshop, I would have liked to get to know his teaching style and his comfort level in front of a 'class' prior to the day of FLC.

I would also re-write our entire lesson plan. It crossed my mind just a few days before FLC that we may have been cutting it close with lack of enough activities. I would have felt much more comfortable in creating a lesson plan with too many activities on it rather than not enough.

Well, I guess that we all live and learn. This leadership conference was definitely an experience to learn from. Let us hope that the next one is better.

Friday, October 2, 2015

The First (of Many) Unit Plans

For my very first unit, I thought to myself "Should I design my very first unit on a certain area that I am knowledgeable or where I need more practice?" I then decided to make my first unit with content that I am familiar with, so that I will be able to fill in the plan easily while still learning what actually goes into the unit plan.

So which unit did I choose?

Quality Assurance

I was very excited when Mr. Campbell (Ag Teacher at Derry High School) told me that he wanted me to teach this in four (out of the eight) classes that I will be teaching.

As a 4-H leader, I have to give Good Production Practice (GPP) training to all of my club members every year prior to the county round-up. GPP used to be known as Quality Assurance training, but has since been renamed since around 2013. I have also taken 8 years of Quality Assurance training myself as I was a 4-H member for just that long.

Being that I am only given 10 days to teach this unit to nearly 80 students, I wanted the content to be precise and able to get the message of Quality Assurance known to the students. I am a strong believer in good ethics and sportsmanship, and there is no better way to spread that through Quality Assurance.

The most challenging part in creating this unit was being able to cut enough information down to where it fits in just 10 days of instruction. From understanding how to give different types of injections, to proper housing, to disease awareness, there is simply a lot of information to cover in this subject area.

I plan on creating my next unit on one of the subjects I am not as familiar with, swine. I am kind of excited but a wee bit nervous in creating it. Any suggestions for activities during a three week swine unit will surely be welcome!

Sunday, September 27, 2015

Technology Reading Reflection

Many thoughts are racing through my mind as I watch the videos in preparation of our #TeachAg Genius project.

As someone who is about to start student teaching in a few short months, I wonder to myself if I will ever have an impact on my students enough that they will remember beyond the classroom. I want my students to know that they have the power to achieve anything as far and as high they deem possible. Just because we do not have a horizontal driver's license does not mean that we do not understand what is going on around us.

I was truly inspired by Angela Maiers speaking on how two simple words can change lives. What are those two words, you might ask? You Matter. Maiers spoke on how many people throughout their lives feel as though they are unnoticed or that they do not matter to others. The power of noticing is so extreme and has such an impact on others. As a future educator, I hope to have some sort of an impact on my students to make sure that they all get noticed; to make sure that they make sure that they know "You Matter".

One thing I absolutely hated throughout school was being so bench pressed for time in mastering a skill. As soon as I learned that Pythagorean Theorem, I was not taught how it applied in real-life before we moved on to another formula . Dr. Tae spoke some very true words as,

All of us can share and teach. It is our responsibility to distribute and share what we know. We can all be great teachers; we can share our knowledge freely and really change our world. Knowledge should not be selfish. Teaching and learning are part of our cultural habits. They should not just be something we do in school.
How can we have our students wanting to come back every day? How can we create lessons that will make us lock our doors to keep others out? How can we make such an impact? How can we tweak our teaching to make it the best?

Saturday, September 26, 2015

The Interest Approach- AEE 412 Lab












This week's lab was actually one that I was excited to write a lesson plan for. After a little bit of a debate with myself, I decided to select a unit I will be teaching in the spring that I have a little bit of knowledge about, Sheep & Goats. Surely I could think of an idea to get students to engage about learning a few of the breeds of sheep.

I decided to create a kinesthetic game to try and keep students engaged throughout the entirety of the interest approach. So I made a game. Not just any game though. I made a flyswatter game. This game I decided to add a little bit of a suspense to add a level of competition. On the whiteboard, I created a PowerPoint. On each slide, I had four pictures of different breeds of sheep. I would then list off either the breed name or a characteristic of a breed that appeared on that particular slide. The student were then able to "swat" the picture in which they believed was the correct answer. This took a few minutes, and I ended with having the students go back to their seats to move on to our Sheep Breeds PowerPoint in which they were given a chart to fill out for that lesson.

Although I felt that this interest approach was successful, there were a few things that I could have done to make it better.

1. Background music... I had a song uploaded and ready to go to add a bit more of a competitive suspense, but I forgot to hit the 'play' button. I feel that the flyswatter game would have been a bit more engaging with the theme song to The Amazing Race playing in the background.

2. Clarity in instruction. I did this in my previous lab, and I did it in this lab. I got lost in my words. I slurred a few words, mixed up some words, and even messed up the order of my directions in explaining the game. I asked if anyone had any questions, and I needed to repeat ALL of my instructions. Turns out that half of the students were lost as to what to do.

3. Don't rely on safety nets. Ok, I like to have something in my hand when I teach. It turns out that I didn't even realise that I was holding my lesson plan in my hand the ENTIRE TIME waving it around all over the place. I only looked at it twice, and even then I did not need my lesson plan glued to the palm of my hand the entire time. I had distracted students because of the waving paper in my hand.

Although I had a few little quirks during this lab, I feel that this was pretty successful. I had the students wanting to swat that sheep on the screen, and we were ready to move on to our lesson for the day. My goals for future labs include: leave the lesson plan out of area of distraction and focus on my own wording. Better luck next week.

Creating Objectives

Our readings for this week included a great article on creating objectives and using cooperative learning. Of course, there are many teacher out there who struggle with either (or even both) of these topics. Just take a look at my previous blog where I completely forgot to even mention my objectives during this week's lab.

I have spent a majority of my time figuring out how one forms a lesson plan and the components within them. Now that I have read Dr. Whittington's article, I have a much better understanding as to what I need to do to prepare myself when working on my objectives. 

Dr. Whittington has a great analogy of the class as a road trip. In order for the students to reach their "final destination", whether it be for the lesson that day or for the whole unit, they need a good map of the roads that will be taken from the very beginning. Just earlier today, I took a trip across three different counties in Pennsylvania, and I was very grateful to have my map (although it was a GPS) to guide me along the way. I relied on it heavily, and I could only imagine how lost I would be without it. This can only be compared to providing students with quality objectives from the start of their 'engines'. Without objectives, how can they reach their final destination?

This would have been very beneficial knowledge to have of creating lesson plans throughout my junior year as an undergraduate as I feel that my lesson plans I am creating today would be so much stronger in the objectives portion specifically. And hey, practice makes [near] perfect, right? 

The article has a great section on the usage of verbs, and that will stick with me from her on out. Using verbs such as "Students will be able to describe..." is so powerful compared to sticking with "Students will be able to understand..." The verbs are even divided up into the cognitive levels of Remembering, Processing, Creating, and Evaluating which were basically simplified from the Cognitive Domain of Bloom's Taxonomy.

Overall, writing objectives is just a new skill for myself and for many others in my cohort. Being able to create them in order to challenge students to think is the ultimate goal and my current task at hand.

(Student + Teacher)^Classroom Engagement x Multiple Intelligences = Student Learning

The First Day of School- AEE 412 Lab

Welcome to Intro. to Agriculture!

Today, I played the role of the Agriscience instructor on the very first day of school. I rewatched my RTL lab, revisited my Learner Satisfaction Forms from the previous lab, thought about the different teaching techniques and E-moments we have learned in these last few weeks, and I decided on what I wanted to do for my "First Day of School". Overall, I wanted to keep the lesson flowing. I did not want a lot of "awkward" pauses. 


As a left-brained introvert, I can tell you that I struggle with words and keeping the conversation going. It took me a while to get comfortable in a 4-H meeting to try and keep things going, so I struggled with building up my confidence levels to relax enough in the classroom; however, I put on my big girl pants and thought to myself  'Go ahead and be that teacher who swims on the classroom floor. The only ones who with judge you are the students.' I thought back to our summer reading,Teach Like a Pirate, for inspiration on the first day of school.


After reviewing my recording, and watching a few of my peers videos, I realised that I did not do a perfect job. There are many areas that I could definitely improve such as:

1. My Objectives. Although I feel that my objectives were adequate, they were written on the corner of the board (was not very smart as some students probably struggled to view them). I also completely forgot to read my objectives! Surely, it did cross my mind afterwards that I didn't verbally say my objectives (perhaps it was my nerves where they skipped over that part). I do give myself credit for not forgetting to post them on the board though!

2. Organization. At the very beginning of this semester, I vowed to myself to maintain organization with my classes. Looks like I need to take a bit more time to actually think out where I am going to place the different activities into my lesson. The introduction activity probably should have been placed at the beginning of the class period, and my interest approach could have definitely ran a bit smoother.

3. Clarity. Ok, my introduction activity was a bit confusing. Rewording my instructions would have probably saved me some time. Also, as someone who struggles in typical daily communication I need to make sure I have clear and concise statements. 

Well, with that being said, I did not have a horrible lesson. All of my feedback stated that I had great enthusiasm and a passion for the subject. It makes me so glad that my passion for agriculture actually came through to others during my lesson. Apparently, my presence was one of the positives too. Makes me glad that I have the potential to actually become one of those Agricultural Teachers one day.

For my next lab, I know that I need to take more time in mentally preparing myself, I must not forget to mention any of the important details (such as objectives), start practicing more of my communication skills outside of the classroom that way I am better prepared inside the classroom, and be confident in my teaching ability!

Engaging By Design

"A teacher who is attempting to teach without inspiring the pupil to learn 
is hammering on a cold iron."
-Horace Mann

As a 4-H leader, I often think about what I want my members to learn and how I can make it fun and engaging. Surely, learning about rabbit color genetics with Punnetts Square does not sound too interesting in the mind of an 8 year old 4-Her, but it certainly can be with the right instruction!

What do you want your students to learn? What material are we going to be able to cover today? How about a week from now? What is the end goal for this unit and/or lesson? It all starts with proper planning. I know that it will not take me an hour to design my very first unit, but I can at least begin to outline my ultimate goals.

Engaging the students is something that takes a lot of my time when I plan for 4-H meetings, but I know the kids enjoy it whenever they talk to me outside of the meetings wanting more information to expand their knowledge even further. That is one of the most rewarding parts of my position. I like how Dave Burgess said in his book Teach Like a Pirate, "Obviously, you can't serve people raw steak on a plate. However, that's exactly what some educators serve their students every day. Teachers like this walk into class with their raw, unseasoned content, plop it down in front of their kids and say, 'Eat it!' They don't bother to provide a side dish, and dessert is way too much trouble," (page 77).

This is where incorporating Burgess' Three Circle Model of Presentation, Content, and Technique/Method really comes into play. It is very important to think about those three areas when preparing to teach. 

Perhaps thinking outside the box and maybe incorporating some technology in the classroom will help engage students.Here is an article I have found that talks about technology and how it might actually be a way to engage your students. As an educator, we need to work on how we want to achieve our goals. If we did not need to put any effort into our lessons, even in an Ag Mechanics class, I know that I would get bored very easily.


Derry Presentation Video

Check out this video I made about the Derry Area High School Agricultural Education Program where I will be completing my student teaching experience this January 2016!

The First Weekly Writing

















Efficient: Doing things right
Effective: Doing the right thing
An Effective teacher Affects lives. ~Wong

One of my biggest fears is the first day in the classroom. I have no idea how to begin. Sure, there is the typical introduction of yourself and the classroom, but how does one simply portray the authoritative role effectively? I am certain that this semester will help build my foundation of who I am as a teacher in order to give me the confidence of walking in on the first day. After reading a few articles, I have come to the conclusion that being the effective teacher takes time. You cannot simply walk in and expect everything to work out for the better.

The three P's that I have stood out from me from all of the articles are "Passion", "Practice", and "Performance". 

A true teacher is passionate about what they do. They wake up in the morning wanting to be preparing our future leaders. They have the drive to research for hours outside of school on ways to improve their skills and lessons. When one of those teachers are in the classroom, their 'performance' is inspiring. Some of these teachers are born with the ability to inspire, but others, like myself, need to work harder for that tite. The article by Vaugh really helped as it pushed through just a few ways of being an effective teacher.

As someone who loved to get into the blue corduroy and was driven by the art of music throughout high school, I understand the passion that a majority of true teachers feel whenever they get into the classroom. Here is an article that I found that truly speaks for the passion of teachers.

Earlier this summer, I attended an online webinar for our summer reading "Teach Like A Pirate" and captured
this image from the slideshow. I found this image really powerful and hope to one day have this hanging up in my own classroom. Until that moment when I get my own classroom, this image will remain on the desktop of my computer as a constant reminder of what I strive to be.


I look forward to going into my second week of fall semester. Putting these newly learned skills to good use are a must.

The First AEE 413 Lab Session- RTL

On Monday, each of us in the cohort drew packets anonymously to get assigned topics to teach in a fifteen minute time slot. Today was performance day on that lesson!

I drew the "Chess" lesson, and my objectives were to have the students be able to recognize the pieces that are used in chess, have students be able to correctly layout the chess pieces on the game board, and have students be able to identify the value of each piece. After some planning time, I decided on what I would like to do for my interest approach and let the rest of the lesson flow from that.

I decided to set up my interest approach as a form of "Tool Identification", and I had the students get out of their seats and come to the front of the room to see if they were able to identify any of the pieces (chessboard, pawn, rook, etc.). After a minute, the students were asked to go back to their seats and share their observations. They were then asked if they ever played the game of chess; surprisingly only one-third of the class has ever played chess. I then proceeded on with my lesson of the point values per chess piece, and how they were each set out on the board. After I was given my 'five minute warning' I passed out the quizzes and gave them some time to complete it, and we went over it together as a group; however, I was given my 60 second warning, so I rushed to finish going over our last few questions.

After reviewing the video of my teaching performance and going over the learner satisfaction forms, I feel that my teaching ability is not ready yet! There are definitely parts that could have gone better. I really need to work on my presence in front of the classroom. My confidence level just needs a boost (perhaps it just needs caffeine) and I need to be aware of the fact that I actually can use the space provided known as the classroom. 

The first time teaching in front of my peers, being video recorded, and being evaluated sure put the pressure on me, and I know that I did not perform as best of my ability. We can only shoot for better results in the future. It is only onward from here!

The First Two SAE Visits

August 20, 2015

Today was a very fun filled day at Derry FFA!

It started off with discussing classes and class units that I will need to prepare myself for this coming January 
2016. After working on that for about two hours (got into quite the discussion about lesson ideas), observing the students who came in to help for the day was a must! Officers Mia and Jessica came by to work on their floral arrangements for the Westmoreland Fair. As a student coming from no plant science in my background, I learned a lot about what oasis is and how to use it in floral design.

We then got a shipment of poinsettias in, so we took advantage of the time and planted all of the bulbs. It took approximately thirty minutes to get all of the flowers bedded with five people manning the greenhouse. Let me tell you, it was a LOT of bulbs! Although, it was nice actually getting dirt under my nails and learning the ropes of what goes on in the greenhouse.

Once those were complete, we called a few students up to see who was available for an SAE project visit. Found out that students do not like to answer their phone, and Mr. Campbell received a text message from two girls saying that they were going to be around for us to be able to visit.
The first girl we went to visit is an upcoming sophomore named Katie. She has a garden that she tends to for a friend of her mother's, and she cans the vegetables from them. She brought a whole box full of canned pickles, tomatoes and peppers along for us to view and explained to us that she has been canning with her mother for a few years now.

Katie actually purchased her peppers from the Derry Flower Shop, and she was amazed that they grew so well.  She has everything from watermelon to squash to peppers to asparagus to tomatoes and more, and they seemed to be free of weeds and diseases.

As soon as we stepped foot in the garden, mother nature decided to let the rain come on pounding down, but no worries, a little liquid sunshine never stopped an ag teacher from doing an SAE visit.


Along with her garden, Katie also has a horse. Blue is a registered American Quarter Horse that she purchased a little over two years ago.

Katie explained that Blue suffered from a stifle injury just before she got him and he has had some trouble with it
since. She has been restricted to minimal riding work with Blue because of his injury, but you can tell that the horse is well cared for. The barn was very well tended and the gelding was in very good health condition.


Katie is actually a tuition student at Derry High School, so it was an interesting experience going about a half hour away from the school to find a students house. 

It was nice being able to see the variety in Katie's projects and getting to know one of the students who I will be teaching the the Large Animal Science class this coming spring. 

The second SAE visit was to a girls house name Emiley. Emiley is an upcoming sophomore at Derry and she has an Exploratory Equine Science project.

Emiley recently rescued an OTTB (Off the Track Thoroughbred) and has been working hard on improving his health and body condition while keeping him fit. She also has a dark bay mare who used to be used in the show jumping circuit, but has recently injured herself so she has been working on getting the mare sound to ride her again. 

Emiley competes extensively in the hunt seat ring, and she even competed for Oak Run Stable. We even discussed her competing in the Horse Judging CDE at State Days next June, and that seemed to spark a bit of an interest from her.

She was unable to catch her horses in the field, but we were able to see them from the distance (so no photos of those bay beauties); however we were able to see her ribbon collection from summer competitions, and how her new barn was set up

Overall, I had a great experience with completing my first two SAE visits. I cannot wait to go on them someday for my own students as the Ag Educator. 

Derry Officer Retreat





The cabin at Pine Ridge Park















Secretary Phillip making corn on the cob over a fire.
















After a long day at work, a much needed drive to Blairsville was needed. The newly elected officer team for Derry FFA spent the day building a relationship as a team in order to crank out a lot of work prior to the beginning of the school year. A long gravel road to Pine Ridge Park lead to a cabin in the woods which was filled with leadership activities.

The day started off with picking the Derry FFA Chapter's theme for the year. After some time for discussion, it was voted to have a very fitting them of "New Beginnings".

The officers then went off to practice their parts, and came back to share their parts together in their own opening ceremony. After that, Mr. Campbell thought of a topic for each officer, and they had to write a speech on that topic and perform that speech in front of their peers.

The officers made lunch and immediately went into building their Program of Activities (POA) for the 2015-16 activity year.

By the time I arrived, the officer team was in the middle of practicing their parliamentary procedure in a mock meeting. Each student was assigned an action (2nd a motion, Adjourn the meeting, etc.). 

Once that was over, the students went all out and cooked an amazing dinner. Phil went to making the corn on the cob, Jessica took to making burgers that was actually beef from a steer she raised, and everyone else pitched in to prep the table and make the rest of the food.

This was a first experience for myself as we never had anything like this in my high school FFA chapter for the officers. I highly recommend every chapter to do an event like this, and you will definitely see this future teacher do something similar to this as an Ag Teacher.
President Jessica preparing the burgers for dinner.