Do I Need an Easy Button?? Student Teaching Week 1

If you look on the very surface of this first week, I need an easy button. It was taking students to Farm Show for 2 days, observing classes the rest of the week, and getting my technology squared away. Easy...right?

If you think it was easy, you need to take a deeper look with me. (For the record, I never once thought it was or was going to be easy)

To save everyone's time, I'm only going to give you the big things that happened this week; the ones that really impacted my experience.

I was nervous and scared and had two breakdowns before I left home to go back to PSU last week. I didn't want to leave home...now don't get me wrong of course I still want(ed) to teach but I just didn't feel like I was ready and didn't want to leave my parents, friends, and animals yet. My 2 week long break wasn't long enough. But when I walked in and got my ID on Monday that changed. I felt like I was ready for whatever student teaching was going to bring to me!

Throughout the week, I have been trying to get a lot of things done before I begin teaching. Logical, right? Maybe but I can't help and think, what could I do to get things done and still talk to the students? How can I connect with them and get to know them before I actually start teaching and do all my first day activities?

Another big thing that I did this week was sit in on the actual Ag Program Re-Approval Meeting. Mr. Haussener let me go with him to experience what I will have to do at some point in my career. A guy from the state came in and went through our PDE (PA Dept. of Education) Program Approval binder and gave suggestions on how to improve. He also commended the program at Cedar Crest for several things. It was interesting to see that perspective of a program before I even start teaching!
To be honest, it scared me and motivated me at the same time. I realized that it was truly a lot of work in order to get re-approved. But it also made me want to do my best when I get my own program because I want it to succeed.

Please be looking for my administration interview blog and my science classroom visit blog which both describe other things I did in this first week!

The only thing I can do from here is to........

From 3 to 30....The 2019 PA Farm Show

The first day of student teaching was fun...to say the least! We got an easy start to the semester because we got to take students to the PA Farm Show in Harrisburg. It was under an hour drive so Cedar Crest got to go for 2 different days.

Day 1- The Mid-Winter FFA Convention (3 students)

3 years ago, I received my Keystone Degree on the same stage as many others did this week. But, that's not the only thing that motivates me anymore. The first year jacket scholarship program actually brought tears to my eyes. It's great to see the accomplishments at the end of someone's high school FFA career but to see it just beginning was a whole other story.

We had a student go to an Ag Ed workshop on Monday and then went to take care of her animals that were exhibited at Farm Show. Plus we had 2 First Year Jacket Recipients! Even though I haven't gotten to teach these students yet, I am so incredibly proud of them! To see the smiles on their faces after we walked out of that arena was pretty amazing! I am so excited to see where they go this semester and what they learn!

Day 2- The Take Everyone to Explore Day (30 students)

What do you do with 30 students in such a big place? How do you keep them out of trouble? Our solution to this was a mini scavenger hunt. It consisted of 8 easy questions that the students must go around the Farm Show Complex to find the answers to. Most of the students had them completed by 10:30 which was okay. It at least kept them out of trouble for a couple of hours! They are all pretty well behaved students but at least they had something to get them started at Farm Show if they have never been there before. As far as I know, the students learned some new things and had fun!

The FFA window displays were judged before we got there but look what we have here!! The 2nd place window exhibit designed by Cedar Crest FFA!! Great job! I was super excited to see this (it was the 1st one I looked at when I walked into that area). To be honest, I didn't even know they were going to have an exhibit but I think it is pretty amazing either way!

After attending Farm Show with the students I will be teaching this spring, I am getting really excited to see what we can learn together!!

NAAE Reflection

What a week of professional development it was! But don't worry, there was some fun things involved! The National Association of Agricultural Educators conference was in San Antonio, Texas. Such a change in weather and the environment in general! It was great!

Left: Random picture taken between a luncheon and a workshop.

Right: Jenna Bush-Hager speaking to us at the ACTE conference that was held at the same time as NAAE. She was really emotional and supportive towards teaching and all that we do!

Anyway, I made a ton of connections to ag teachers from across the nation and went to a bunch of great workshops. 

The workshops that stuck out to me were....

• empathy
• effective directions
• special education
• ethanol

All of those workshops were conducted by different people (one being Dr. Foster). They were all really informative.

These are the results of the activities we completed in the empathy workshop.

As I have been working on lesson plans and making directions, I have found myself thinking about what I learned in the effective directions workshop. I keep running through my head the outline of what directions should look like.

I also really enjoyed the teacher panels we had for discussions. Dr. Jessica Jones from Virginia was super impactful to the entire audience. She cares about her students a lot but still knows how to have fun while teaching her students.

Lots of Fun Times!!

Two of my favorite things to do was to hang out with Pennsylvania ag teachers for a boat ride and for dinner one night. It was great getting to know some teachers that I will hopefully be working with in the future (and ones that I look up to)!

Left: sights during the boat ride

Right: a light show on a cathedral (we went to this right after our PA teacher dinner)

Overall, I cannot wait until I get to go to NAAE as a non-student teacher! It was really exciting to experience a new culture and get to meet other professionals at the same time!

Life Knowledge Lesson Reflection

I completed my Life Knowledge lesson during my Thanksgiving break. My lesson was a combination of 2 FFA Life Knowledge communication lessons. I taught the Ag 2 class which is 2 periods during the day. I'm going to start with the negatives of my lesson then end on a happy note.

Things to change

• A common theme, my lack of confidence in front of real students was an issue again
• The first period that I taught, I didn't really give a "why they needed to learn communication skills."
• There were small classroom management issues in the first period. They were still doing what they needed to do so I let their misbehavior go when I should not have.
• I need to start recognizing things that need change and then change them on my own
• Have a clicker or something to carry around to change slides while I am walking around the room

Things to keep the same

• Generally, my pace was good and the students kept up with what I was saying.
• The students were highly involved in the lesson. They answered all of my questions when I asked them. I did this for every slide I made.
• I had good content that the students truly enjoyed talking about.
• I took a few negatives and changed them for the 2nd time I taught the lesson that day.

Overall, I enjoyed teaching this lesson. The students seemed really into it for the most part. I saw an improvement in the way some of them spoke (I had a small speaking activity at the end of the lesson).

Ag Mechanics Demonstration

My demo was on sweating a joint/sautering a copper pipe. This was only taught to our cohort. This time, I had a hard time finding good things about this lesson but here they are. I had a sheet clearly outlining all of the steps that were to be done. I had decent student interaction throughout my mini lesson. All of the materials I needed were right on hand during the demonstration except I had a student go and get a wet cloth for the end of the demo. 

I was not confident at all. If I were to do this again, I would definitely actually practice the steps. I practiced before I recorded my demo but I would practice multiple times before I actually taught this to students. Along with practicing, I would make sure the torch works and I know what "setting" to have it on to maximize the time being used.

Micro-Teaching Lab Reflection

A cohort member of mine, Kayla, and I went to Juniata High School with Mrs. Morgan. Our micro-teaching experience was supposed to be 3 days in a row with the same group of students. Everything was perfectly fine until about the week before we had to complete this experience. The weather was going to be cold and snowy. Well, what do you know? The snow not only cancelled Juniata's school days but cancelled PSU's school days as well! While my hometown only got 4 inches of snow, State College reportedly got 11.5 inches!!!!!

Kayla and I only got one day of teaching in. It was a relief to finally be in the classroom teaching students and not teaching our peers who were trying to portray high school students. My class was a plant/soil science class that is currently on plant science. I decided to switch gears and teach about soils. My three lessons were "What is soil," "Edible Soil Horizons," and "What is soil pH?"

Logically, I taught the "What is soil" lesson first to get the basics out of the way. Overall, it went really well. I walked around the room just enough and asked just enough questions. I really wanted to have the students interacting more during the lesson and I definitely did that with asking so many questions.

On the other hand, I was wavering in my speech. Mrs. Morgan and Kayla both said what I already knew; I need to be more confident. I know the material and what I want to do so I just need to be more confident when I am actually in front of the students.

When we were at the school, we talked about missing days due to snow. Well, what do you do in that case? There are many options. You can just forget that lesson (NOT a good idea), wait until the next day to complete that lesson (a better idea), or you can put the lesson online if possible (a really good option if you do it right). I couldn't say what I would do in those situations. I think it would depend on what class(es) I am teaching at that time. Hands-on classes would be very hard to conduct online so that is not really an option.

Virtual Mentor Exploration....part 3!!

Key Question: What are the best tips/resources you would provide to new teachers regarding special needs accommodations? 

As a follow-up to the last virtual mentor exploration, we were asked to do another (what I would consider) diversity blog post! For as many special needs accommodations that there are, there are a ton more ways to help these learners!

A big point that my mentors came up with was use your special education teachers. They may have worked with your particular students before which would help you to know what accommodations are needed. The special education teachers also know the school district. They can point you in the right direction towards other resources within or outside of your school district.

Even though this isn't from a virtual mentor of mine, I attended a workshop on special education at the National Association for Agricultural Educators conference last week in San Antonio. Ms. Becky Haddad was the workshop facilitator. Thank you!

*side note: the 80 degree weather was super awesome compared to the 11 degree windchill I heard there was at home!*

An accommodation is a change in how a student learns. Some very common accommodations are guided notes, provide formulas/steps, word banks, etc. As I think back to some of the lesson plans that I have already completed, I know I use vocabulary handouts and guided notes a lot. While that is good, I need to remember that that won't work for everybody and that I shouldn't do that all the time if I can help it.


As a teacher, a really cool resource to have was a sheet that keeps track of your students with needs and what accommodations they need. It keeps all of this information organized, especially if you have a class with a large number of students with special needs. Below is a picture of this pretty cool sheet!

Integrated Science/Inquiry-Based Teaching Lab Reflection

This past week, our teaching lab was Integrated Science/Inquiry-Based Learning. We had to use some sort of scientific equipment but also incorporate the techniques we learned with inquiry-based instruction. My lesson was on conducting soil, apple cider vinegar, white vinegar, and dish soap pH tests and comparing the pH of each substance.

Opps-Opportunities to Improve

• I stumbled on some explanation of the soil pH indicator colors. There were 2 different solutions that would react with soil that was in certain pH ranges that are specific to those colors. I just need to know what I'm talking about and be confident in my activities. Practice!
• I also need to be more clear in what the students need to find by the end of the lab. It wasn't clear to the students and that caused some confusion. I would just need to make sure that I fully state the question and ask if the students have any other questions about what they are to do.
• The students should draw conclusions on their own. They have collected the pH of all the substances and now they need to communicate what each of those means.

Gems-Things to Keep Doing

• I did well at walking around the room and asking the students if they were doing okay.
• I let the students test for pH at their own paces. They knew what they had to do and I was there for them if they needed me.

Overall, I think the lesson went decently well. There are definitely things I have to work on but I think I did better than I feel I did. I got frazzled when I was asked about the indicator colors and that threw me off for the rest of the lesson. I can't let that happen in the future.

Weekly Investment Inquiry Based Instruction

Weekly Essential Question:

What is Inquiry-Based Instruction?

Key Questions:

Why use Inquiry-based Instruction?
How is Inquiry-Based Instruction different than Problem-Based?
What are the key elements of IBI?

Key Takeaways:

Mr. Seaman's Interview

• scaffold questions for students, ask yourself "Are the students headed in the right direction?"
• students must find answers to said questions

Readings

• students are working with each other to conduct experiments
• hands-on!!!
• I really liked the descriptions of the Six Stages of the Inquiry Cycle
• Inquisition
• Acquisition
• Supposition
• Implementation
• Summation
• Exhibition

Thinking about each of these steps individually really puts IBI into perspective for me. It helps me to think of how to implement this into my lessons. 

• "knowledge in action" is an exceptional description of IBI
• I think this is really important. Students have learned something in the area of plant science, and then there is a problem with some greenhouse plants. The students need to be able to actively use that knowledge to figure out why there are problems with those plants.

• In the Thoron reading, a study on implementing inquiry was conducted. One of the participants said, "As the teacher you have to be willing to give up being the center of attention..."
• I don't know about other teachers but I'm not teaching to be the center of attention. I am there to teach the students. I don't want to be thought of as the center of attention (although I know I am in some ways as most of their attention is on me). I do see the point in what this participant said; I think that it may be hard to just facilitate rather than be in front of the students teaching them something. It is hard to change from something everybody is used to.

I truly believe students have to learn problem solving and critical thinking skills in order to go out into the world. Because of this, my goal is to have a lesson for each unit that is high on the inquiry scale before the end of the spring semester.

References

Warner, A.J. & Myers, B.E. (2011) What inquiry-based instruction? Retrieved from https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/WC/WC07500.pdf 

Warner, A.J. & Myers, B.E. (2014). Implementing inquiry-based teaching methods. Retrieved from https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/WC/WC07600.pdf 

Alberta Learning. (2004) Focus on inquiry: a teacher’s guide to implementing inquiry-based learning. Retrieved from https://education.alberta.ca/media/313361/focusoninquiry.pdf 

Thoron, A.C., Myers, B.E., & Abrams, K. (2011). Inquiry-based instruction: How is it utilized accepted, and assessed in schools with national agriscience teacher ambassadors? Journal of Agriculture Education, 52(1), 96-106. DOI: 10.5032/jae.2011.01096  Note: Retrieve online from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ955679.pdf 

If Tomorrow Never Comes....

If Tomorrow Never Comes.......at least I will have seen Garth Brooks in concert.... No, no, let me be serious. While that is true, in reality I should say, "If Tomorrow Never Comes at least I will have gone to National FFA Convention twice in my life!"

In my opinion, the 91st National FFA Convention is one of my favorite things to do. Attending Convention this year with my cooperating center was only the second time I've ever been there (1st time was to receive my American Degree two years ago!). I really needed a break from constantly going to classes. This was the right amount of "have fun" and "you need to be Miss Lang for 4 days."

Mr. Haussener, 4 girls, and myself made up the Cedar Crest group. The girls were not competing in anything so our schedule was made up of tours, walking around the expo and doing other fun activities! 

Wednesday October 24

We toured Corteva Agrisciences (the Dow, DuPont Merger). This was actually a really informative tour. Two of the girls actually want to go into (informal) education and they had the opportunity to ask questions about the different job opportunities offered through the company. (This was also beneficial for me as I am open to all options!) The students not only learned about jobs but also about the different projects that Corteva is and has been working on.

We had a little bit of time to walk around to the businesses and colleges at the expo. I was on the lookout for free resources that I could utilize in the classroom. I did find a few small items that will be useful!


Then we did what I want to call a, "moral support, team building" kind of exercise. We went zip lining. And I was semi nervous...I was nervous to be hanging in the air by a line attached to wooden towers and a trolley/pulley thing. I knew I was going to be fine but it still made me nervous. I also could not look up at all because I start to not feel well if I do; I can look down though. I know, weird!

Along with the Cedar Crest group was Northern Lebanon students, our neighbors! I believe most, if not all, of the students knew each other so we had a pretty good time! One of the NL students was scared out of their minds to be up in the air that high. Everyone pitched in and supported her, encouraged her, and told her it was going to be alright. It was a fun, yet meaningful trip!

Honestly Wednesday night was the night I was looking forward to! It was time to see Garth Brooks in concert!!!!!!!

We weren't on the floor or really even close to the stage but if I zoomed in on the screen, I could get some pretty cool shots! He played for just over an hour I believe. I was super tired but I was too excited to fall asleep! He "ended" the show but I knew he was missing a HUGE song but couldn't figure out which one. He did this on purpose of course! Anyway, he came back out for his encore and played "Shameless" and I maybe one or two other songs.

--This is a good bonding experience for the students, maybe some stress relief and even some cultural awareness or introduction to a different genre of music if they don't listen to country!

Thursday October 25

We had an early morning as the group of us went to the opening session at 8 AM. The keynote speaker was Kyle Scheele. As I'm writing and thinking about this, I'm actually crying. Part of his message and a big project that he's working on is "letting go of who you used to be." This has been a really rough year at school for me; I feel I have lost some people from my life that I thought were going to be friends for life and sometimes it has made me feel alone. I can't count the number of times, just this semester, that because of everything going on, that I have caught myself saying, "I just want to go home." "I just want to go to where I know I'm loved and where I can see my cows everyday." In reality, I am loved. I do have a lot of people who are there for me. Everybody gets really busy in college and can't always hang out with everyone that they want to hang out with. I get that now.

Also, we walked around convention some more. I had to buy shirts for my parents (and I bought one for myself too of course!). In addition, I walked around to different booths as well and learned more about several different companies.

--Walking around the convention center gets the students to meet new people and discover things that they have never seen or done before.

Our last big thing that we did on Thursday was touring Fair Oaks Farm. They had pigs and dairy cows. We had a bit of a thought process on when to head to the farm because it was across the time zone line so they were an hour behind what Indianapolis was. We let ourselves become confused when thinking about the time difference. It all worked out okay; we got to the farm right on time!

--It was really interesting, to me at least, to see the way that the farm worked differently than what I know. This will be useful in the spring for the two students that were on the trip. I can say, "remember when we went to Fair Oaks?" in my animal science units. That doesn't work for all of the students in the class but it might peak others interests to learn more about Fair Oaks and other operations.

Overall, I know it was an educational experience for all! The students learned a lot on the tours and just by walking around the convention center. I learned alot about myself and how to handle myself during student teaching. 

My advice (to myself and other student teachers): We are close in age to these students. We can easily relate to them so we may feel we can share a lot of information with them. I was careful to watch what I said and how I said it. My point is, remember you are there teacher, not their parent or friend. If we are too friendly, then they won't have any respect for us while we are teaching them.