NAAE reflection

I'm going to start off this blog with just one word.

wow.

Going to the NAAE conference was an amazing experience. There were so many connections that I was able to make while I was there. Whether it was through a conversation with someone or listening to a presenter at a workshop. I always knew that Ag Ed was a big family, but during this conference that concept really hit home. Everyone that I made connections with that was already in the field of teaching were all so happy to share advice with me.

The workshops that I attended were very useful. they were loaded with information on how being an effective teacher. These are things like how to give instructions effectively and how to show empathy and use inclusive language when addressing your students in class.

Some of the resources I was able to obtain at the conference were really useful. This included textbooks and it also included ideas. My favorite idea that came out of the conference was a lab based workshop that was for urine testing in animals. They had big cut outs of the the dogs they were using and they were laminated, so that the students could write their results on the dog. They then proceeded to do a gallery walk so the students could see the other data that was collected by the different groups.

I really enjoyed the FAST program and I think it was really beneficial to talk with other pre-service teachers. I think FAST did a really good job with choosing what information would be beneficial for us to know. My favorite development activity was the conversation stack. It was helpful because it curbs that awkwardness of when you meet someone new.
It goes:
whats your  name?
Where are you from?
Tell me about your family
Do you have a job?
Have you traveled?
what are your hobbies?
Do you have any goals?

These questions can help you stem off into conversations and really help you build relationships.
Not only did this conference help me network and gain resources, it also helped us grow closer together as a cohort.

Good times,useful resources, good food, great people

Ag Mechanics lab reflection

Giving a demonstration can be super simple, or overly difficult depending on what you're demonstrating and how it's being demonstrated. When I did my Ag mechanics lab I chose to do cable ripping. It was difficult to not go too fast through the demonstration, since I already knew what I was doing and to me it was easy. It's important to go slow and make sure that your students understand every single step you are doing.

When I did my demonstration I utilized the method teacher says, teacher does. Teacher says, student does. student says, student does. I feel like this is a very effective way to get students to learn a step by step procedure because not only are the students involved directly in the learning, but they also get to see the demonstration done three different times.

when doing demonstrations you have to make sure that you have clearly defined steps to make sure there is no gray area in transition. Whenever you are doing demonstrations, you should make sure that all the tools you are going to use are prepped and workable. You also want to make sure that you do the demonstration yourself before you show your students because you don't want to be in the situation where you don't know what you are doing in front of them.

Life Knowledge Reflection

When I went to teach my life knowledge lesson at Juniata Valley, let me tell you I was so excited. My initial thought was these are going to be my students in just a few short weeks. The life knowledge lesson I chose was one on leadership. I had a group of 9 students. the leadership lesson I had was packed full of activities. So many in fact I had to adapt and choose certain ones that I had to cut.

There were a couple times that I had to use some classroom management skills. There are 4 instances that stuck with me.

1.) Two students were goofing off a little with one another and I attempted to use proximity, but when that failed I ended up having to use the good old "let's keep our hands to ourselves" line. They stopped afterwards.

2.) When we were discussing leaders on a national, or international level one of the students started making jokes about our president, which got the other students off track because they thought his comments were funny. I took that as a learning opportunity to point out to them that our president is still a leader, regardless of what anyone's opinion on that leader is. After I said that it made them think about what they were saying a little and the rowdiness stopped.

3.) there were two students that were talking when I was giving instruction on the next activity. How did I handle that? I finished giving my instruction and then preceded to ask one of the students if they could share with the class what the instructions I had given were. After he looked at me like a deer in headlights I had one of the students that did listen to my instruction repeat what I had said to them. He listened that time.

4.) The last one that sticks out to me is there was a worksheet where they had to figure out what the one word definition for leadership was by looking at different leaders. On that worksheet the one word definition was a scrambled word at the bottom. one of the students thought they would be tricky and use a word unscramble on his laptop. When I caught him he said he was just looking up more information on the people they were supposed to be reading about. He kept pushing me on it for a couple seconds, but I looked at him with a smile and sternly said "shut the computer". He shut it and that was the end of that.

Once again I had a problem with timing and pacing just like I had problems with when I was micro teaching. That's something I really have to work on and any advice people can give to me would be greatly appreciated.

Overall, the students seemed to have fun and I had fun watching them work and interacting with them. I also learned that sometimes it may not be easier to teach a smaller class because there's less chance for participation and there's a lot of voluntolding that happens. However, after working with those student's it only made me happier to be going to Juniata Valley in the spring.

Micro teaching reflection

For my micro teaching I was at Bellefonte area high school. I was put in charge of conducting a lesson pre-vet class. The content I chose to teach was on common diseases. I chose to do the first day on livestock diseases. the diseases were blue-tongue, avian influenza, anthrax, and foot and mouth disease.
 
I started my lesson off with the bellwork being that the students had to make name tags, since I didn't know them I thought that would be a good kick starter to my three days of teaching. After they created name tags I had them do an activity that demonstrated the spread of disease with baking soda and flour. the students had to get up and interact with one another and only one of them was "infected". The students really seemed to enjoy this activity and it seemed as though they had a blast trying to problem solve who the person was that was the initial disease carrier. In the student's ticket out the door a student put that they felt as though that activity helped them better understand how diseases are spread. After that activity was wrapped up instead of straight lecture, I had the four diseases put out on clipboards, so they could look through and see what the symptoms, treatments, and prevention methods were for each disease.

When doing this I realized I had ran out of time for everyone to get through all the diseases, the way I adapted is I had the students that had looked over the diseases already were to share out what they learned with the class.

For me the most difficult thing was time management. Not with only the lesson itself, but with pacing between the different students. Every student has their own pace when it comes to not only writing down notes, but also retaining information as well.

The next two days I was suppose to teach the same class again, however snow took it's tool and Bellefonte closed, so I was unable to do so. What I was planning on doing was on day the second day they were going to google symptoms of a given disease, find it then present their findings to the class on a poster. The last day they were going to learn about diseases in small animals and exotic pets. Since this did not happen I reflected on as a teacher what would I do for lost time? If it was my own class I could continue where I left off when the students came back, or in this digital day in age since Bellefonte is a 1 to 1 school I could send out an alternative digital assignment and if there was anything that HAD to be done in class they could do it when they came back. Honestly, for me since we only had three days with these students and I couldn't adapt to teach them on the days following the snow days I was a little upset. I was super excited to do my day 2 lesson with them and I never got to do it. However, sometimes things just don't work out as you want them to. The best you can do is think positively and move forward.

Inquiry lab reflection

This week my the lab I had to present was inquiry based. It took me a while to come up with what I was going to do for this type of lab. Realizing that inquiry has multiple levels of difficulty for both the learners and the Teacher. This is because depending on different factors inquiry can either be somewhat structured by the teacher or it can be completely student driven. Either way you look at it however, it is the students who are posing the questions.

I personally found inquiry a hard concept to grasp, but I think with more and more practice I will be able to become better at it. I truly think inquiry is a great tool to get students to access their higher levels of thinking. Throughout school students are often spoon fed the information that they need. This does not lead to critical or individual thinking.

My lab was having the student score white-tailed deer antlers off of the Boone and Crockett scoring model. My idea was to just give them the worksheet and have them score the antlers based of the image on the score sheet. After they started I realized I should of included a demonstration showing them how to score the antlers because I had to interrupt the students once or twice because I noticed that they were doing it incorrectly. I recognized this as my opp.

For my gems:

• At the beginning of my lab I had them each choose a different animal that has antlers and look up information about them. I think it was good to show that there are other animals out there that have antlers rather than just white-tailed deer. 
• I feel as though my students enjoyed my lab because I had them doing a very hands on activity and it kept them occupied.

All in all I love the concept of inquiry and it makes me excited to see what student's come up with as they search for answers. Who knows maybe while they are researching something you propose they'll come up with something you never thought of/found. I can not wait to stretch my inquiry teaching techniques while I am out student teaching!