Last week of Fall Student Teaching!

Monday 9/21/15


- During 5th period today (Ag 2 - Integrated Ag), I felt like I ran out of time with my lesson as I had a video I really wanted to show at the end of the lecture to help wrap up and add more meaning to the lecture. When discussing this with my cooperating teacher, she raised the question of should I have shown it at the beginning of the class to make sure I had enough time to show it. I agreed with this and some days and some lessons I feel it would be more beneficial and grab student's interest by showing it at the beginning of the class. However, today and for this lesson I thought it would be beneficial to the students to see at the end of class and help them to grasp/make sense of the concepts.

- During 6th period (Ag 1 - Intro to Ag), students were actually very focused and paid attention to the last of the information we needed to cover to finish up a unit and prepare for a test. Looking back I noticed I called on the same 5ish students to answer questions so next time I might try to move around the class more and call on different students. Classroom management is definitely an issue in this class especially because there is a variety of maturity levels. I ALWAYS feel like I am running out of time in this class. I try to teach bell to bell but I am not sure if maybe I am trying to fit too much into one class period. I have had some feedback from a couple of students that I move too quickly sometimes. I loved that I got this kind of feedback from my students, especially because they are some that don't normally answer a lot of discussion questions in class. I have also been struggling with giving too much time for students to finish assignments, too much class time. I am not sure how to balance this. If it is only a couple of students and they have had adequate time to complete their assignment then I know I shouldn't give them more time. However, when it is almost the entire class then maybe I am not being clear on my directions or not giving the students enough time. Something I need to work on.

Tuesday 9/22/15


-  In 6th period we started a new unit about Oregon Agriculture and I was very excited for today's lesson because I had brought in different examples of commodities (some they could eat) and had a video to expand on Oregon Ag but nothing seemed to flow together very well. I thought that I had planned ahead and felt organized for the lesson but it just didn't go quite as I had planned. I know the students might not know that because I didn't say anything to them about, I tried to just roll with it and keep going. I understand even the most well thought out lessons won't always go as planned.  Today of course we had lots of technology issues, and it wasn't just in our classroom. The internet and phone systems had been off and on all day. Luckily I was still able to show the video through a phone on the doc camera which worked out perfectly as there was no commentary on the video, just background music.

- Today was also the day of my first formal observation from OSU and Dr. Croom came to observe me. I knew and had planned that he was coming so that it wouldn't distract me or throw me off when he got there however he arrived early and actually had the chance to observe both of the classes I was teaching at this point. I was excited for this because the two classes I am teaching have very different classroom dynamics and management. I felt we had a great conversation afterwards about how the classes went, and were able to discuss some questions I had and things to work on. He gave me some very positive feedback which was definitely motivating!

Wednesday 9/23/15

- I was FINALLY able to show the video for my 5th period class to help wrap up Monday's lesson! I first asked the students if they thought it would be beneficial to see it and HEAR it and then we had a short discussion to wrap up that topic. In the next lesson I was able to take them outside and discuss/point out concepts we had just gone over. It was great to get this class outside and out of the classroom. At the end of the class I incorporated an "exit slip/ticket out of class". This was something Dr. Croom and I spent some time discussing the purpose and how to incorporate them. I was excited that I actually had time to do this and it was reassuring when looking over them that the students were learning and understanding what I was teaching.


Thursday 9/24/15 

- Today I only had one class to teach (5th period) due to homecoming week festivities, and event this class was cut short. The students had a "noise parade" and pep assembly. I really enjoyed these and was impressed by the amount of student and community involvement! I was even more impressed that the ASB officers and cheerleaders had choreographed a dance to the new popular song "Watch Me Whip and Nay Nay" or "Whip and Nay Nay" (I have no idea what the song is called, HA!). And the students did an AMAZING job with it! Loved it!

- Today was also National Teach Ag Day and I was bummed that my class ran out of time and I was not able to do the fun activity I had planned.

- I was able to put together a contest type activity to help wrap up the soils unit I had been teaching. Even though the students had more information to cover to further prepare them for the soils contest coming up, I wanted to create a way that I could end my lessons/time teaching and also test them but not actually giving them a test. Candy bar prizes was a great motivator/interest in this activity!

- My day wrapped up with actually having more time to chat with my cooperating teacher about how my first couple weeks of teaching had gone, what was coming up, and finishing up my checklist. I am not sure how much time other student teachers were able to have to talk with their cooperating teachers but I did not always have a set time to sit down and talk. My cooperating teacher has a very busy schedule and 2 little kids that need picked up about an hour after we are out of school which leaves little conference time for us. Unfortunately, I was not able to completely accomplish everything on my checklist but made notes for when I return in the winter. My cooperating teacher will be at Fall Conference and we are planning to continue some discussions regarding what I will be teaching when I return, materials I need, and anything else that will be going on that we can plan for.


First month of Student Teaching: CHECK! :)