The week of Travel: Student Teaching Week 11

This week started with a stop in Harrisburg to attend SLLC just for the evening. While I was there I was able to see my students and help score proficiency awards for Horticulture and Equine. I even ran into my high school Ag teacher and I was so happy to see her. We had a lot to catch up on. I was glad that even though I wasn't staying at SLLC I was able to spend dinner with my Juniata Valley students.

When I woke up on Monday morning I said goodbye to SLLC as we headed to Philadelphia For  a PAEE (Pennsylvania Association of Environmental Educators) conference. While there I attended workshops that gave me resources and ideas of things I can take back to the classroom. With an emphasis on insects. I found there are a lot of resources out there that help with teaching about macro invertebrates. I also learned techniques and skills I would need to approach teaching entomology to people who are weary about insects.

After I returned from the PAEE conference I turned around the next morning and traveled with my cohort down to Baltimore. There we toured schools to see how they were ran in an urban/city setting. It amazed me of how schools can utilize what little resources they have and teach from it. The big take away I have from being in Baltimore is the atmosphere. Students there outside of school live in fear almost every day of their lives. Some of the stories that we were told shocked me. However, when these students are in the school they can learn and feel safe. It's important for kids to be kids and being at school allows them to do that. Feeling safe is something I take for granted every day. As an educator you don't ever truly know how important you are in a students life.

We are doing a service learning project for one of the charter schools that is up and coming for k-3rd grade. We are going to be creating raised garden beds. I hope that this project will make a difference. I am going to be returning to teach my last 4 weeks at Juniata Valley and I'm happy to go back. These 15 weeks are going to be over before I know it.

Question for my readers:

How would you go about making sure that your room always feels like a safe place for your students?

Full weeks do exist: Student Teaching Week 10

For the first time since I started teaching there was actually a full week of school! you can also add a day to that because on Saturday I attended the Blue Juniata auction that is held every year as a fundraiser for the chapter. So, not only did I get a full 5 days, but a 6th day as well. (A full week for me however meant 3 days with my cooperating teacher and 2 days with a substitute. Ms. Russell had to spend part of Thursday and all of Friday preparing for the Auction.)

This week I was able to move the students a little farther in their shop projects and I was able to begin a unit on wait for it... BIRDS I was so excited. I was going to go ahead and do a plant unit with my students after plumbing, but they expressed wanting to learn about birds instead. I ran it past Raylene and she let me go for it! I am truly in my element with this subject. Another thing that made me ecstatic was I proposed the question to my 8th graders about what they would want to learn after they finished their wood shop project and multiple students said "hunting and fishing", so I took that and made it a little broader asking if they would be okay with environmental sciences and they were all on board. In my head I was doing a super happy dance.

On Thursday I had a speaker come in from the Conservation District to teach my natural resource class on how to use the Biltmore Stick. We were able to go outside and it was very nice.

On Friday Miss Victoria Herr came to visit me and it was very nice having her there. It was a sense of comfort knowing that someone on the same level of teacher was there to support me and see how I am doing.

As I had mentioned on Saturday the Blue Juniata FFA held an auction. As soon as I got there a couple students exclaimed MISS BLOOM IS HERE! They were so excited to see me because they already had a job lined up for me. Cutting pies, yay. It was fun though getting to meet new people and learn things about people in the community. It made me realize, depending on what type of fundraisers you have. It's not just an event to get money, but fundraisers can bring communities together as well.

For my readers:

Are there any fundraising ideas you may have that would not only bring in money, but promote coming together as a community as well?

Shop, shop everywhere! Student teaching week 9

This week was pretty significant for me in the terms that I ended a lot of theory in the classroom and started to apply it to practices in the shop. When it came to ag mech I’ll admit I was very nervous and wasn’t sure how I would do teaching it. This past week I impressed myself. I taught soldering, brazing, MIG welding, and started a wood shop project with my 8th graders!

I would say I feel more and more confident teaching in the shop every time I am in it! Who knew that the girl passionate about environmental science would love teaching shop! Natural resources will always be my passion, but Ag Mech is definitely second!

What’s my favorite part about ag mech you may ask.. well let me tell you! I love seeing students attitudes change in a positive light! For example when we went to weld a lot of the students were super nervous and didn’t want to do it at all. After some guidance and some demos they finally tried it and all of them agreed that it wasn’t as bad as they thought it would be. There were quite a few of them that actually enjoyed running beads when they didn’t think they would!

Another awesome thing about teaching these skills is often after students do them they feel proud of what they had accomplished. For brazing practice they brazed a couple washers together and let me tell you, some of those students faces were beaming with pride and joy!

I’m excited for this coming week because I get to go back into the shop with my students to work on projects or to teach something new!

To my readers:

Have you ever done anything shop based? If so, what was your proudest creation?

Turkeys, Assembly’s, and Delays: Student Teaching Week 8

To kick off this week we had a 3 hour delay and there was a chance that I was going to teach without power. In the 3 extra hours I had I adapted and planned, so that I was prepared to teach without that power. When I got there the power luckily came on about 10 minutes before classes were getting started. However, I realized if I can adapt to teach without power it makes teaching with power seem that much easier.

On Tuesday we got in 22 turkeys to raise and I jumped on the opportunity to use them as a research project with one of my classes. We decided to compare different feed brands and take their weights on Tuesdays (Turkey Tuesdays)  to see which made the turkeys gain more weight each day.

On Friday we had another delay and an assembly as well, so there wasn’t much class time at all. The assembly was for a program that JV does called CHAMP and it’s basically a miniature THON for their county. It was awesome seeing everyone in the auditorium together. When I say everyone, I mean everyone K-12. Seeing all the student there supporting this cause to raise money to go to families in the county that needed it. Juniata Valley alone raised $11,504.53. With a last minute $20 being thrown in there for one of the high school teachers to come up and kiss a pig on the lips (the pig bit him by the way).  The students really seemed to enjoy their time at the assembly and so did I.

Question:

How can we incorporate an event in FFA that deeply impacts the school, schoolwide?

What are the official FFA colors?: Student Teaching Week 7

National blue and corn gold. How is this relevant to my weekly reflection blog? Well, let me tell you. This was National FFA week, a time to celebrate and appreciate everything FFA. At the end of the week we had Ag Olympics which involved the entire school. During the activities there were a few trivia questions that were asked. One of which being what are the official FFA colors? The student who answered that question was one of the 8th graders that had just gone through the FFA unit of my class. A couple of the other trivia questions were answered by other students from MY 8th grade class. I WAS SO PROUD. It made me smile from ear to ear knowing that a lot of that knowledge was thanks to my teaching.

It was a fun week, but once again it wasn't a full one. However, the days we were in session I had the opportunity to dress up in some pretty fun stuff.

Monday: Pajamas
Tuesday: Flannel
Wednesday: Teacher/Student swap day (that day was cancelled)
Thursday: AMERICA day
Friday: FFA/Ag shirt day

It was awesome to see students participating and finding enjoyment in the week immersed with FFA. I have started to find a basic groove with interactions with my students and I am building relationships with them that I know I will cherish forever.

However, even though I am building those awesome relationships I have a couple students that are very negative and claim the don't like agriculture and just look at everything in a negative light. It brings me down to see such negativity. For example the one student scoffed at my bellwork, simply because she didn't like the phrase bellwork and thought that bellringer sounded better. I'm trying to roll with the punches, but it's difficult to reach some students.  I just keep my head up, every day is a new day and I work every day to say at least one thing positive to these negative students everyday.

To my readers:
How would you motivate students that are just consistently negative?

How do you get students who refuse to do things to do them?

Just a day and a half: Student teaching Week 6

Pennsylvania never ceases to amaze me when it comes to bad/crazy weather. Thanks to the wonderful Pennsylvanian weather we got out early on Monday, then had 2 days off following that and THEN I had to be back on campus Friday for a seminar with my cohort. With all this happening I taught for a whopping day and a half. However, I am now almost at a full load of classes with every class but 1st period on my plate.

I came to learn quickly that not every first day with a class always a walk in the park. One of the periods I picked up on Thursday I had to raise my voice to be able to establish my expectations for the class. I never would have thought I was going to need to lay down the law for a first day experience with a class, however here I am.

Since, I was out of school Friday one of the things that I had to do was leave behind substitute lesson plans. It was a lot of work trying to piece together the materials that I needed for every single class that I was going to be leaving behind for my "substitute". There is going to be an entire week in March that I am going to have to leave sub plans behind for and I know that is going to be a huge time commitment to prepare for.

While back on campus we went through mock interviews, I believe they helped me out immensely. I thought I knew quite a bit about interviewing, but there were some pieces of advise that were given to me that I had never even thought of before. It was nice seeing how an interview would go from different professions and not just formal Ag Ed. After the interviews though I had a moment of realization that this is real. This is actually happening. The world is soon going to have a Ms. Rachel Bloom in the professional world doing the best she can to make a difference.

To my readers:

In your opinion what is the number one thing to remember when it comes to getting ready for an interview?

What would you recommend to a student/new teacher when it comes to planning out a long length of time for a substitute when you know you're going to be out?

*Blink* Woah: Student Teaching Week 5

Wow I think I blinked. I am now 1/3rd of the way through my student teaching. 5 weeks down, 10 to go. This week the teacher's finally had a full week. However, the students were lucky and had an already scheduled day off on Wednesday. While they were at home I was here going through a training that involved what to do in the case of an active shooter. It's a scary thought that this possibility is a very real thing.

This was my last week with a light load of 2 classes. Starting next week I will be teaching a total of 6 classes. I know once I pick up those classes, my days are going to go even faster than what they are going now. I'm mentally preparing myself to be the most exhausted I have ever been.

What I want to highlight for this week is today I started the 3rd period class. I had a 45 minute period planned with ice breakers and different activities. However, when I did my introduction and mentioned bird banding it peaked an interest. My  day of ice breakers turned into a lesson through me sharing something that I love to do.

Now that I am in the jive of getting to know the students I'm starting to realize that there doesn't have to be big highlights every week, it's appreciating the little things, from a student coming up to you to ask you a simple non ag related question to watching a student really getting into something that they love to do.

Speaking of not ag related, I had the opportunity to attend a pink out game (a game that benefits someone with cancer) for girls basketball and they were great to watch! not wonder Juniata Valley takes such pride in their basketball. They have some extremely talented students in the district. Not to mention the student who coordinated all of the happenings of this large event game was one of our ag students! I'm very proud of her to say the least.

One last thing I want to highlight is I had a student write and article in the paper about me and the eco bottles I had the natural resource class create and it came out in the Huntington paper on February 8th. Not going to lie, it made me smile.

Questions:

How can I fuel a student to pursue their interest, even if it's not ag related?


How do you suggest I balance classes, so that way they don't divide to far apart when it comes to the content I will be teaching?