In-Service/Professional Development

During my time at Boonsboro, I truly became a member of the school. I was attending sporting events where students that I had in class were playing, I ate lunch with the CTE Department (outside of the faculty lounge), and participated in in-service days.

While at Boonsboro, I was only able to experience one in-service day. However, that day gave me a new insight into what the wonderful world of teaching would be about. Not only was there grading to be done, there was also professional development to be engaged in, as well as prominant issues to be discussed.

During the in-service day, we began the day with a breakfast that was provided by the gentleman that worked at the school. The men made and served the breakfast to all of the alumni, retired teachers, and current teachers. After breakfast, it was time to travel to the media center to participate in some professional development.

The principal had an urgent matter to discuss and needed everyone present to hear the news so the meeting was pushed back by a half an hour. At the beginning of the meeting, there was an issue addressed amongst students who had been snapchatting from the school wifi and sending some disturbing comments to a fellow student. The principal informed us of the issue and how to handle the issue should another arise or we be contacted via the media.

After this conversation was had, and faculty discussed their frustrations and solutions to the problem, it was time to get down to business. We discussed what teachers can promise to their students, and in turn what we ask students to promise to us. Following this discussion in small groups, we made a large group document to share amongst all of the faculty and staff at BHS. The day was then handed over to technology.

The I-Team, which Ms. Cashell-Martin was a part of, presented a demonstration to describe to teachers how to air play from their ipads to an apple TV. After this demonstration, we were released to our departments where we would dive deeper into the world of Apple classroom in addition to google classroom which we were already learning and utilizing.

The rest of the day was ours to complete grading as this professional development day also signified the end of the marking period.

I enjoyed this in-service/professional development day and have grown to appreciate it as an ag educator when things just seem to get busy, schools offer you an additional 1/2 day essentially to finish grading and put grades into the grade book.

MATA Meeting and Spring Judging

During my time at Boonsboro High School, I had the opportunity to attend a few different events where our students were competing. We had Regional CDE's where our Agricultural Mechanics team placed first in the region, as well as Creed Speakers, Prepared Public Speakers, and Extemporaneous Public Speakers all scoring incredibly well in their respective areas. This event opened my eyes to what it means to be an advisor and take a look into the advisor aspect of teaching agriculture outside of the traditional FFA meetings throughout the school week. I recognized the time and commitment that is takes to prepare students for this event and then provide a helping hand throughout the entirety of the contests as well.

Not only was I able to play an active role in the execution of these contests, but I was also able to expand my content knowledge in regards to agricultural mechanics by helping to coach this CDE team with the assistance of an industry expert and Boonsboro Alumni. This experience allowed me to take part in a contest that I knew little about and a content area that I have fallen in love with and will continue to grow in throughout the course of the following years. 

After the regional CDE's, students can also participate in the spring judging event. This event is a much larger event where all of the regions come together to compete in several different CDE's. At this event, students are competing for the state title rather than waiting and competing at the state convention in June. The purpose behind this separate event is to reduce the amount of CDE's that are taking place at state convention due to the limited space and availability at the location. 

This event is for students participating in Agricultural Mechanics, Milk Quality and Products, Floriculture, Nursery and Landscape, Agrscience Fair, Agronomy, Food Science and Technology, Meats Evaluation and Technology, Middle School Ag Challenge, and Veterinary Science. Many students who decide to compete in these events will wait to see if they place in the event and if they do not, they will often times pick up another CDE in order to attend the Maryland State FFA Convention.

While attending Spring Judging, I was able to also attend the Maryland Ag Teachers Association Meeting. Rather than PAAE, Maryland has MATA. The members come together each month to discuss prominant issues that are effecting the ag programs and teachers. What really stood out to me at the meeting was how supportive they were of students who are in college to become agriculture educators and came through Maryland Ag Ed programs. The teachers decorated package boxes and donated several items to be shipped to the students who are finishing up their degrees.

At this event, several items were brought to the attention of the members of MATA. Prevalent items included Operation Nebraska, an effort to send supplies to the farmers in Nebraska. Mrs. Terrie Shank gave and update on FFA and what to expect at state convention this year, they also discussed how to book rooms for National Convention and when those housing blocks will become available for advisors to book. There was also discussion regarding the new look of the MATA website which members had worked hard to update and make more user friendly. Mrs. Cashell-Martin discussed how to nominate teachers for NAAE and MATA Awards. Overall, the meeting went by quickly and addressed a lot of important information that advisors needed to be sure to take note of. I recognized that while the meeting was short, there was a lot of information presented and if you were new to the crowd, you needed to be paying attention or you could miss information.

Smile Because It Happened

15 Weeks. 6 classes. Over 50 students reached.

The past 15 weeks, I have been over 100 miles away from home, in a different state, living with strangers who have become family. The past 15 weeks, I was transformed from a Penn State Nittany Lion to a Boonsboro Warrior. Somehow, I am always drawn to the color blue.


Throughout my time at Boonsboro High School, I have learned quite a lot not only about myself, but also about how Maryland Ag Ed is so different than Pennsylvania Ag Ed and how I can marry the two strong passions that I have between Ag Education and Special Education.

At the beginning of the week, I said goodbye to two of my classes as they began their next unit of instruction with Mrs. Cashell-Martin. As Thursday inched closer, I struggled with finding the right words to say and the right way to say see ya later to the students at Boonsboro High School. As the days grew shorter, I was overjoyed with the amount of support and encouragement from both the students and the staff at Boonsboro High School. The amount of hugs and "I'm going to miss you's" were endless. My life skills students wrote me a card and created a goodbye video for me. The officer team also gave me a gift stocked full of teaching materials that I can use in my future classroom. While many of the students walked away with tears in their eyes, I reminded them that I will be back for the banquet in May and of course, quoted one of my favorite sayings. "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened."

As I drove away from Boonsboro High School on Thursday evening, I was feeling overwhelmed with emotions. I wanted in the worst way to sit in my car and bawl over the lives that I'd gotten to touch and the memories that were made, but then this quote popped into my head. I began to reminisce on all of the memories that were made and think about how many of those memories will be with me for a lifetime and how many more memories I can make with my future students in my own program.



When you ask me why I choose to teach, it's not because I love school because to be honest, I wasn't always the best student, it's solely because I love students and I love playing a role in the lives of students, especially students who may have a rough home life, or need a little bit of extra attention. I believe that all students deserve to have that one teacher who comes out to their sporting events, checks in with them at lunch, makes connections at the door before class begins, and notices when their having a rough day. I long to be that teacher.


To wrap up my student teaching experience in just one blog post is nearly impossible. But, what I can tell you is that I have had an incredible time connecting with the students at Boonsboro. I have grown as a person, and educator, and a member of society. I have gained valuable content knowledge and teaching strategies. But what's grown the most is my heart and my passion for educating the future generation.

I cannot wait to return to Boonsboro in May for the FFA banquet and continue to grow and I dig deeper into the field of education and the content of agriculture. So, as you find yourself having to walk away from something that you love so much, "don't cry because it's over, but smile because it happened."

Once a Warrior, always a Warrior.

Goats, Pigs, and a Western Town? (SAE #2)

Before I left Boonsboro, I had the wonderful opportunity to visit another rock star student.

This student continuously went above and beyond not only in my classroom, but also behind the scenes. Between her lacrosse games, she made the time to participate in any FFA event that she could get her hands on. Her mom also recently joined the FFA Alumni and is taking on an officer position! Brownie Points earned if you ask me!

The student lives on her families farm, where they have plenty of land, a horse, 8 goats, 4 chickens, and pigs. So essentially, this student has two SAE's going on with both her goats and her pigs. However, I only had the opportunity to view her goats. She has 2 whethers, 3 doe, and 3 kids.

All of the goats are kept together all of the time. One, named "Moose" was a bottle baby and even stayed with the family for a short amount of time in the house! When discussing the SAE with the student, we discovered the unlike most female animals, the doe were not protective of their young. When the student goes in to feed the goats, the mothers are not charging the student or becoming aggressive. The student is solely responsible for the care of the animals and feeds them medicated feed along with hay each day. She also allows the kids to naturally wean off of the mothers milk. In addition to showing one goat, the student also sells the kids for $25 per kid.

While visiting the student, we discussed the opportunity to apply for two different proficiencies due to having two species of animal. We also discussed what the daily tasks are associated with all of the animals. A majority of the visit was spent in the barn with the goats observing and discussing the fair procedures with the student. The student was reminded of using the AET online record keeping system to update records and was informed that the record book does not need to be updated each day but preferably each week or every other week.

In preparation for this visit, we discussed with the student and the mother when would be a good time for us to visit. We made sure that we were visiting on a day when the student did not have a game and that we were visiting late enough in the evening that the student was not still at practice but also early enough so that she had time to complete any schoolwork that she may have needed to complete.

At the end of the visit, the student gave us a grand tour of the old western town replica that her grandfather and his brothers designed and built throughout the past several years. The town is complete with a barber shop, bank, millery, parlor, chapel, saloon and much more! The history behind the buildings and how each was carefully designed and created was so neat to hear from the perspective of the student!

This was one of my favorite parts about my student teaching experience because I was able to interact with the family, visit some animals, and learn more of the history behind the family and why they created this western town. It was such a neat experience to see how much thought went into this tiny little town!

SAE Visit #1 (Placement SAE)

Supervised Agricultural Experiences.

SAE's are somewhat new to Boonsboro High School students as the state of Maryland has just recently affiliated and some of the students are unfamiliar with what SAE is or what the AET online record keeping system is. Therfore, SAE visits have been a bit of a challenge for me.

However, I had the pleasure of visiting our Chapter President at her job working on a small farm. Which, I would consider a CSA.

The most important thing that I took away from this visit was the relationship between the employee and the employer. The employer was sure to provide our student with a walkie talkie that she carries around the farm each and every day. This walkie talkie serves as a form of communication due to the poor cell phone reception in this area. 

While working on the farm, our student gets to tend to a variety of different plants and animals. On the farm, the family has 100 laying hens, a variety of grassfed beef which include herefords, angus, and charlay, as well as 11 hooney cooney pigs and a greenhouse.  

Something that I found unique about this placement is that the family has multiple animals on the property which they use for market products. All of the beef are grassfed beef, and all of the animals can be marketed by individual cuts rather than purchasing 1/2 of a pig. This system has been put into place due to the customer clientelle which is primarily in the DC region.

I thought that it was interesting how connected the employers were to our student in terms of support and wanting the student to continue working for them post-graduation. I also thought that it was interesting when discussing with Mrs. Cashell-Martin, I determined that she does not grade the SAE projects due to how new the students are to the concept.  

Dover High School with Ms. Boltz

Life gets crazy sometimes, right?


So, this blog is definitely past due, but I am super excited to share about my experience while visiting Ms. Boltz at Dover Area High School in York, PA.


Ms. Boltz was teaching 3 of the 4 classes that she would teach when I visited her at Dover. owevr, one of the classes she was teaching was to be co-taught ended up just being Ms. Boltz serving as the student teacher as well as the substitute teacher.

Ms. Boltz was substituting in an Agricultural Mechanics class where the students were workign to rebuild engines that they had previously obtained from various community members. Students were trouble shooting the engines and coming up with solutions to the problems.Through this experience, I realized that having a larger shop area can be both a blessing and a curse. It is incredibly useful in order to have students spread out throughout the shop and have their own space to work, however, it is hard to manage a class in a large shop with a garage door that is allowed to be opened and closed throughout the day to assist with the fumes from various engines.

Ms. Boltz also taught an animal science class where students were focused in on goats. She even had a few goats brought in for students to play with and observe!

Suggestions/Advice that I left for Ms. Boltz:

-Use “cue” words to signal movement

-Use time limits

-Utilize silence more often, make sure you have attention from all students

-Cut off unnecessary conversations when other students are talking

-Incorporate movement in every class (This is something that our principal at BHS is requiring of all teachers)

-Don’t be afraid to enforce rules

Things that I have brought back to BHS:

-Tests are a learning opportunity not just an assessment

-Test was out of 20 points, 10 was just taking the test, other 10 from discussion post

-Olympic music with podium for 1,2, and 3 place after grading tests

-Clocking in and out

-Alexa Friday

Other Observations:

-AWESOME relationship with students

-Treated like another teacher

-No access to online grading platform

-Cooperating teacher is very supportive and addresses students if they are treating Ms. Boltz differently than they would treat her

Mock Interviews

During my student teaching experience, I have been afforded the opportunity of getting to know the administrative staff due to our lunch duty obligations every day. Therefore, I was surprised at how nervous I was for my mock interview with the principal at BHS. One thing that you should know about the principal here is that he is a hard interviewer, he is always looking to grow and does not want to be associated with those who do not have the same mindset.


The interviewing process began different than what I was expecting, I was handed a sheet of paper with a few AFNR standards on it and told to come up with a unit plan to address each of the standards that were listed. I was given 20 minutes to complete this task. Immediately, the anxiety levels rose as I began working through the content and tryint to come up with a way to complete this unit plan in 20 minutes. Normally, when I am hit with anxiety one of two thihngs happen, I get incredibly irritated and lash out, or I begin to sob and break down crying thinking that I am a failure. However, to my surprise- neither of these things happened!

The very first thing I thought of while completing this unit plan was something that has been drilled into my head for the past 4 years- begin with the end in mind. So, I flipped my paper over and began brainstorming ways that I could both formatively and summatively assess the students within this unit of instruction. I then moved into the lesson plans, what would the titles be and what standards would I address as well as the objectives for the day. While I did not finish the unit plan, I had a good start to it and to my surprise, Dr.  Kuhaneck didn't even look at the unit plan. He asked me questions about how I designed the plan but did not physically ask me to hand him the unit plan for further review.

When being asked questions and answering questions, I made sure that I was making eye contact and addressing the individual who posed the question to me. I was also sure to take time to breathe and think about how I was going to answer the questions before rambling about what the question was. I made sure that I remembered the question that was being asked and was even provided a form with the questions listed on it that I was able to look over as the questions were being asked. Both Dr. Kuhaneck and Mrs. Cashell-Martin were present for the interview which made me feel a little bit more nervous about interviewing. However, that meant that I was given the opportunity to get feedback from the Principal as well as feedback from Mrs. Cashell-Martin.

Key Take-Aways:
-First impressions matter! Take the time to shake hands, and introduce yourself prior to sitting down.
-Safety is always something that you can discuss in an interview and should be discussed.
-Don't just focus on one content area (my unit plan was plant science based, however, I was asked questions about a mechanics shop as well)
-Ask questions regarding what content areas you will be teaching
-Make sure to highlight the three circle model, I was asked questions about apprenticeship which is taken care of through the SAE portion of the three circle model.

Science Classroom Visit

I recently had the pleasure of observing an Anatomy and Physiology class at Boonsboro High School.

The class consisted of a lab that allowed students to test their

strength, grip, and fatigue.

The objectives for the class were:

-Measure and compare grip strength of your right and left hands

-Correlate grip strength with gender and certain physical characteristics

-Compare the pinch strength of the individual fingers of the dominant hand

Interest Level/Why:

-Students engaged in the content, new technology that they have not used before

-Interested in which hand was stronger and why the dominant hand is weaker than non-dominant hand

Teaching Methods:

-Inquiry, students were walking themselves through the lab given directions

The teacher did an excellent job at having students think for themselves. Students were given a direction sheet and informed that it was their responsibility to complete the lab packet with their group members. The teacher was facilitating the classroom and not giving away information.

BECOV:

Business-like behavior: Creates a sense of urgency, engages in student behaviors

Enthusiasm: Engages in student labs

Clarity: Clarifies instructions to student

Variability: Students engaged in lab entire class period, doing both grip strength and pinch strength

With-it-ness: Incredible wealth of content knowledge, being able to explain the lesson to students and other faculty who enter the room, asking questions and answering questions as they arise.

Learner Centered-ness: Teacher facilitating learning, students

Other Comments:

Teacher did not interact with students throughout the class as far as feeding information, students were engaged in lab activity the entire time, students are taking this course to serve as a college credit for HCC

You are more. (Week 14)

Week 14.

One more week until this experience comes to a close, and let me tell you- it has flown by.

The days seem to be going so much quicker and in return, so do the weeks.

No matter how quickly your time goes, you always need to keep in mind that you are in control of how you spend that time. Whether you spend it trying to make connections with your students or just passing through checking off the assignments, you are in control.



What you may not realize is that you may think that you are JUST a student teacher, JUST a temporary part of the program, JUST a small part in the lives of your students, but let me tell you- You are SO much more.

This week, as I began to hand back two of my classes, I was able to see the impact that I have made on some of these students. The ones who you may think will never like you, end up showing the most emotion when you break the news that you are leaving in just a few short days.

Don't underestimate your role in the lives of your students, the lives of the program you are in, and the lives of the community members that you have interacted with. Because you are so much more than just a face to them.

When you attend your last FFA meeting and an officer is looking down in the dumps, go and comfort her, ask what's wrong and how you can help.

When a student comes to you upset about a family concern, put down the textbook and listen.

When students are affected by the tragic accident that another student has recently been in, take the time to check in and comfort them.

Because you may be the only person that student has to vent to.


You are so much more than you realize.

Embrace every moment of this experience, be present.

Don't take a single day for granted, because at the end of this experience, you may not ever see these students again, but I can guarantee you that you have left an impression.

Because you are more.

Facilitate more, talk less (Week 13)

This week, I learned a valuable lesson. The more you talk, the more students get confused.
The more you facilitate, the more they retain. As teachers, we should be facilitating the learning and promoting more critical thinking from our students. I have learned that the more that I talk and try to explain things to my students, the more confused they get. Whereas, if I give them instructions and a brief description, they are more likely to think critically and figure things out in the best way for them. That is not to say that we shouldn't lecture sometimes, because sometimes that the only way to get to our students, but we should be learning with our students and always remain one day ahead of them.


I have found that when I let my students think for themselves instead of spoonfeeding them information, they tend to retain more information and put it to practical use.

I have also learned that class time is valuable, if you are not coming in prepared each and every day and creating a sense of urgency for your students, you will never accomplish what needs to be done. Because students model what you are teaching.

And last, but certainly not least. I continually come back to the realization that asking questions is not a bad thing. As a child, I was constantly picked on for being "dumb" or not knowing "enough", so I continually try to figure things out on my own. However, asking questions is the only way that you can get through this crazy thing called life, and it's okay to ask questions or ask for clarification.

This week has been packed full with many realizations, some awesome interactions with students, some good conversations with my cooperating teacher, and a little bit of stress as well. In this road that we're travelling, it's always important to keep the "why" in mind and continue to grow each and every day.

Key Questions this week:
1. What is the best method for dealing with students who are defiant?
2. How do you leave at the end of this experience after making these awesome connections with students? How would you recommend spending your final few days with students?
3. As I continue on my teach ag journey, what are some of the best ways to gain content knowledge in addition to reading the textbooks?