Life Knowledge Reflection

One step closer to student teaching.

One step closer to becoming a teacher.

One step closer to graduation.

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.

What Can I Eat With This Beak?

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!

Virtual Mentor Exploration #3

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.

1. Ask for help, especially from the special education teacher.
2. Record evidence of your accommodation. 
3. Address lab area accommodations addressed in the IEP.
4. READ the IEP. 
5. Be patient!
6. 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. 

Virtual Mentor Exploration #2

Essential Question: 

"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. 

Honor the Texas Flag

Texas.

Oh, Texas.

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. 

Inquiry: Giving Students the Lead

This Week's Essential Question:
What is Inquiry Based Instruction?

Key Questions:
1) Why use Inquiry-Based Instruction?
Inquiry based instruction allows students to engage in real world scenarios. The students are trained or conditioned to become more self-motivated. The teacher provides guidance, however, it is the duty of the students to come up with a solution to the problem stated by the teacher.

2) How is Inquiry-Based Instruction different from Problems-Based?
The main difference between Inquiry-Based Instruction and Problems-Based is the amont of correct answers. Problems-Based has one clear cut answer to the problem at hand while Inquiry has multiple different solutions. However, IBI includes many of the components of Problems-Based such as questioning. Inquiry is heavily reliant on the students at times and therefore having guiding questions at least for yourself is helpful to allow students to get to the answer.

3) What are the key elements of Inquiry-Based Instruction?
There is no prescribed elements to inquiry-based instruction. Inquiry-based is not solely reliant on one criteria or one correct way. The chart used for inquiry-based instruction is a spectrum. It is important that us as pre-service teachers understand that it is okay for our lessons to not be all the way to the right of the chart. Mrs. Krista Pontius came to our AEE class last week and tried an inquiry lesson with us that she had recently wrote. One of the key things that I took away from her visit was that inquiry is often a lot more enjoyable than lecture for students. I also appreciated her comments that whenever she delivers a lesson, she thinks how she can make this lesson more inquiry-based in other words, how can she get the lesson further to the right of the chart.

Third Times The Charm

Holy smokes!
The weeks just keep on going and I'm not sure I can keep up!

October 22nd through the 27th were some of the most eye opening days for me as a future Agricultural Educator.

I travelled to Maryland on Monday, October 22nd to complete my life knowledge lesson (stay tuned for details on that!). Tuesday morning, bright and early we left to start out trek to Indianapolis, Indiana for the National FFA Convention and Expo.

Now I'm no stranger to this massive convention. I travelled to Louisville, Kentucky as a student for the National Convention in 2014. I also travelled to Indianapolis last year as an employee working for National FFA.

While all of these experiences required me to wear different hats much like Ag teachers do, this last one was the most memorable.

I travelled to Indianapolis with several other chapters near Boonsboro (my student teaching location). This trip was different though, there were two full coach busses full of students and teachers- something I'm not use to! (The other two trips I took were taken by vans with approximately 10 other people).

While at National Convention, we were able to experience a fascinating agritourism location- Fair Oaks Farm.

The students that we took, which were three girls who were all on the officer team, also participated in national days of service.

We jammed out to Garth Brooks and Easton Corbin and we listened to some of the National FFA Officers retiring addresses.

This trip to National Convention was one for the books. I was fortunate with three incredibly mature and responsible girls. They were able to be left alone for a majority of the time at national convention and were always on time, or even early to meet us where they needed to be.

I was able to get a glimpse of what it's like to be in charge of students in another state. Keeping track of the health forms for each student just in case something may come up. This trip really opened my eyes to how much the teachers need to be conscious of their students and their surroundings. When going to these events, you need to keep the students in mind as well as making sure that you are getting time for yourself to really dive into all of the professional development and teacher workshops that National FFA has to offer.