Student Teaching Blog

Week 3 - Started teaching 1 class!
 9/7/15 - 9/11/15

Monday 9/7/15
- Labor Day Holiday = No School!
- Will go to school on Friday to make up for Monday

Tuesday 9/8/15

- Ag Leadership is currently reading Habitudes and there are videos that correspond with each of the chapters. Today's video talked about not being able to lead others until you first take care of yourself, then you are more ready to serve others. Even though we may feel guilty taking this time for ourselves as it could be spent doing other things but we shouldn't, we need some time to refuel and recharge. This is something incredibly important for me and that I have started to take more seriously over the past year. I have learned the hard way what happens when I let myself get run down or over-committed and as a result of that I am not the best version of myself.

-  I felt today's lesson, Intro to Soil Science, was overall a success. We made it through the entire lesson plan for the day with time to review at the end of class. However, I also felt like I was boring the students or that my lesson wasn't that exciting. I guess there wasn't a ton of classroom management that needed to happen and the information we covered was general overview/introduction material. There wasn't a lot of hands-on activities I could really incorporate today. But, all of the students answered my questions correctly and were on point the entire class period. I had one student working on homework for another class and when I asked him to save it for later, he immediately put it away. Beth complimented me on how I handled that situation so that was a great confidence boost for me.

Wednesday 9/9/15

- During Plant Science today, instead of posting vocab words on the board or reading them aloud, Beth posted small strips of paper of all the vocab words and definitions around the room and the students were given time to record these in their journals. I thought that was a neat idea and a great way to switch it up and get students moving around

- Today did not go as smooth as I had hoped it would, especially compared to yesterday. I personally felt because I had several things planned and several worksheets to pass out, that I was going to run out of time which made me feel scattered and unorganized even though I was organized and prepared. I suppose I went from one extreme of not having any handouts to another extreme of having too many handouts. After visiting with Beth and another teacher, I decided that next time I will try having piles of handouts on the front table and have students pick them up at the beginning of class. This would not only save time of me passing them out throughout the class period but would also prevent the possibility of forgetting to pass them out or feeling scattered.

- Not realizing it in the moment, I completely skipped a hands-on activity I planned but just continued with the topic I was lecturing on and then came back to the activity at the end. I didn't want to stop and back up in the middle of the lesson so I just went with it and I think it was all fine!

- Tonight we had a district Ag Teachers meeting in Athena. It was great to sit in on this meeting but I felt very overwhelmed when they were discussing dates of events on the calendar. I felt the meeting would have gone more smoothly if there was an agenda and a larger circle of tables so that everyone had a place at the table. It was great to meet most of the other Ag Teachers in the district here and the district officers.

Thursday 9/10/15

- Today was another challenging day as we learned the texture by feel - ribbon method in soils. The students in this class are very high achieving students and want to know how to do everything right all the time. This is great as there is little classroom management and the students are very dedicated. However, this is also challenging because some activities such as the ribbon method, take a lot of practice. At the end of the first day a couple of my students felt like they had failed because they couldn't make a ribbon or theirs wasn't as long as someone else. When one of the students asked if there was an exact right answer, I honestly didn't know how to respond because there is not always a definite right or wrong answer. I felt like I had failed with the lesson or that I wasn't clear enough in my instructions. I personally thought all of the students did very well and were successful for the first time texturing. And as the bell rang I told them "great job today" and one of my students replied with "great job teaching". This definitely lifted my spirits and inspired me to keep doing my best.

Friday 9/11/15

- Completed my first ag program visit this morning at Athena (Weston-McEwen) High School
- I did a ton of driving today but it was worth it to see different teaching styles, activities, and overall atmosphere of different schools in the same district.

- In my class, I had 3 out of 9 students in class. One student was sick but the others were gone due to sports. This is one of the main challenges of Friday school because at small schools most students are involved in several activities and when you don't normally have school on Fridays, that is when the majority of games and traveling are planned. Oh well - no big deal. Today I wanted to build on Thursday's lesson/activity to not only enforce the importance of the texture by feel method, but to also enforce the idea that it takes a large amount of practice to truly grasp this method. Starting with a demonstration was far more effective in helping the students understand the process. Working with the students on each soil sample gave me the opportunity to better understand the challenges they were facing and to help them reach success. Throughout the activity and at the end of the class period, I felt the students had reached more success through our discussion and feedback while comparing both days of doing the activity. I definitely need to remember to incorporate a demonstration at the beginning of hands-on and lab activities. I felt overall today had much more success and positive energy and a great way to end my first week of teaching!