SLURB's are very social creatures! They like to interact with anyone that they come into contact with. Much like the penguins pictured below.
What exactly is a SLURB? A slurb is a made up creature that I utilized during my integrated science lab. In all reality, all it was, was flour. However, one of them contained baking soda as well!
The SLURB's were told to interact with one another for approximately 5 minutes. At the end of the 5 minutes, I told students to return to their seats. I explained to them that there had been an outbreak! One of the SLURB's that was interacting with everyone was carrying a harmful disease and now we needed to determine who was initially infected and how many others had become infected.
How exactly did we determine who was infected? I added vinegar to each of the cups, if the contents in the cup bubbled, I knew that baking soda was present which meant that the SLURB was infected.
The problem: All of the SLURB's were infected because everyone interacted with the same people.
Let's Gem and Opp it out!
Gems:
Students were able to move around the room. The activity was very interactive.
The activity connected well to the lesson: how diseases spread.
Opportunities for improvement:
Provide a worksheet to help students keep track of who they came into contact with.
Explain to students that they should try not to interact with everyone.
Provide more instruction prior to "letting them go".
At the end of the day, I feel as though my lesson went well and I will definitely be using it with some tweaks during my student teaching experience!
This was round 2 of my life knowledge lesson. The first time, I felt incredibly unprepared, and not genuinely interested in the topic at hand. Although the students were fairly interested in the topic, I felt incredibly scattered and unprepared.
So fast forward to round 2 of my life knowledge lesson.
I felt more prepared than the first time around, however, I was still not wild about the lesson.
The lesson was in regards to why people join organizations, in an attempt to promote recruitment for the FFA program. The materials provided to me through the FFA life knowledge lesson was incredibly dry material that was also repetitive. I could see the students losing interest and being bored. I attempted to get them up and moving and increase class participation, but they were not having any parts of it.
Looking back on the lesson, I think that I would add some of my own words and activities to get more engagement and not repeat the same information for an hour. I would also include a recruitment video to promote the Boonsboro FFA. The recruitment video would gain interest of students who may not have otherwise been interested. I would also attempt to locate another recruitment video for a different organization so that I was not just tailoring to the needs of the FFA students.
Overall, I was not very happy with my life knowledge lesson, but the main point is that the students learned something. Although it was dry and boring, the students genuinely learned.
As I prepared to travel to Juniata High School with Sara Lang, I had all of the confidence in the world.
Upon arrival, I began to get a little bit more anxious about how the students would react to me as a teacher, the technology that was used, and more importantly, how they would react to the lesson.
I am pleased to announce that the lesson went on with minor hiccups throughout. The lesson began with a bellwork question regarding shore birds, I was interested that some of the students had never been to a beach before. Which is exactly why I included pictures of the birds in a Powerpoint as well. The bellwork was proceeded by a short clip from a Disney short entitled Piper. Which featured a sand piper and his search for food.
After discussing the reasoning behind why I used this clip, the students were then instructed to go out into the shop area, which connected to the classroom and gather into groups that I had put together using a numbering system. This is where the first hiccup came in, I had to get all of the students out into the shop in a timely fashion, in their assigned groups, and take the recording technology with me.
Once everyone was settled into the shop, I gave each group a household item to attempt to pick up various "food items." When they were finished, they were to record how many food items each member collected. Which brings me to hiccup number 2... I had forgotten to instruct the students to bring the papers into the shop area with them. I instructed the students to grab their papers, quickly, and come right back into the shop area. (Thankfully, I had some rockstar students and this was able to happen without any issues).
After returning to the shop area, students were scrambling to write the results down from the first attempt. There were work tables but only on one side of the shop so the other students were having trouble writing on the ground as well as picking up the food items off the ground.
Throughout the many hiccups, the lesson went on fairly well. The students were engaged, Mrs. Morgan was genuinely happy with what I had to offer her class, and provided me with some awesome feedback.
Things to fix:
-Clarity with instructions!
-Tables or clipboards for students to write on
-Tables or some kind of plate to place the food items on so that they aren't all over the floor
-Explaining the technology prior to the end of the lesson
I was incredibly happy with my lesson and am excited to be one step closer to my student teaching experience!
Essential Question:
What are the best tips/resources you would provide to a new teacher regarding special needs accommodations?
If you haven't already picked up on it, this is by far my favorite topic to discuss. While enrolled at Penn State and studying Agricultural and Extension Education, I have also been pursuing a special education minor. Recently, I have even been looking into the 4+1 program that Penn State has to offer which would allow me to obtain my teaching certification in Agricultural Education, a Masters in Special Education, and potentially obtain my teaching certification in Special Education.
But, enough about me! Here's what my virtual mentors had to say in regards to special needs accommodations.
Ask for help, especially from the special education teacher.
Record evidence of your accommodation.
Address lab area accommodations addressed in the IEP.
READ the IEP.
Be patient!
Know the difference between accommodation and modifications.
All of these tips and tricks are resources that I intend to use throughout my student teaching experience and I cannot wait to combine my passion for agricultural and my passion for special education at Boonsboro.
"What strategies or resources do you use to help your class/program be responsive to cultural diversity and English Language Learners?"
As teachers, no matter our background or where we end up teaching, we will encounter various students from varying cultural backgrounds and needs. As educators, we need to be adequately prepared to engage these students in our classes.
The main point that my virtual mentors were able to give me is that each student is unique. The phrase that has been stuck in my head a lot lately is Every student. Every Class. Every Day. It doesn't matter what the students background is or if they are learning English as a second language or not. All students should be treated with the same respect. Because of the scientific nature within our agriculture classes, ELL/ESL students may require more attention than others in terms of vocabulary and definitions.
The key is that each state, school, and program has differing resources for students who are ELL/ESL students. Our job as educators is to cater to our students needs in any way that we possibly can.
I'm not going to lie to you, I was not 100% looking forward to Texas. I mean, let's be honest. What really is there to do when you are in Texas?
Those are the thoughts that were rushing through my head prior to traveling to Texas.
However, I am happy to say that throughout the week in Texas, my opinions changed. They changed so much that Texas may be on my list of potential states that I would like to teach in.
Now, I wasn't simply in Texas for the food, entertainment, and historical sights. I was there for the National Association of Agricultural Educators conference.
Throughout the week, I went to some incredible workshops, met some amazing people, and kindled new friendships that I never knew would exist.
Let's begin with the workshops:
Classroom Inclusion
Relationship Building
Teacher Panel
Balance family with Ag. Ed.
What drives misconception of agriculture?
Back to basics in modern day Ag Ed
It's different for girls
Work-Life Balance
Special Education in the Ag classroom
Trading Cards
These are just a few of the many workshops that I attended while at the NAAE conference. While I was attending NAAE as a student teacher, I was also involved with a program called FAST or Future AgriScience Teachers Symposium. Which leads me into the people.
The amount of people that I encountered and was able to connect with was incredible!
Just to name a few:
Dr. Jessica Jones (VA)
Becky Haddad (OR)
Holly (DE)
Jessica Lumpkins (TN)
Jordan Roy (GA)
Dane White and Katie Titus (CA)
Abigail Heikes (ID)
Each of these individuals have either made and impact on me due to their kind and caring hearts in regards to inclusion and diversity, or they were just genuinely kind and caring individuals that I was able to connect with on a personal level.
At the end of the day, we were able to explore Texas and the city of San Antonio. Each day entailed something a little bit different. Most evenings were spent experiencing the unique food and culture.
Some of the things we experienced and saw:
The Alamo
El Mercado
Go Rio- Boat Ride on the River Walk
Laser Light show on the church
Pearl Market
Throughout these experiences, I was able to connect with Lisa Boltz and Victoria Herr, two of the members in my cohort who are from the same side of the state, and within a county of where I grew up. Now, I had met both of these incredible ladies throughout my high school career, but once college began, I lost contact. As we all started our college careers at different campuses. Throughout the week in San Antonio, I was able to reconnect with those ladies and discover their individual strengths and how I can lean on them and them lean on me throughout this following semester and our lifelong careers.
So, Thank you Texas! Thank you for allowing me to kindle new friendships, experience new things, try new foods, and above all, discover more about myself.
