Winter Term - Week 5

During professional development I was reminded by older, more seasoned Ag Teachers, that there will be good days and unfortunately there will be some not so great days. And hopefully, the good days will outweigh the bad. 

And this week just happened to include some of those not so great days…

After chatting with a very successful teacher (that may or may not have been intimidating to talk to, or so I thought), I took away some key points to remember on the not so great days…

-          Remind myself why I am doing this

o   Someone did this for me, helped me, influenced me, inspired me

o   I am passionate about agriculture and teaching

-          Remember that student teaching is its own special kind of experience…or beast

-          And to try making “appointments” for yourself (even if you don’t have an actual appointment somewhere)

Too often I feel guilty for taking time for myself to relax and take a break. I also realize the amount of hard work and dedication it takes to pursue your passions. However, it is finding that balance that can be challenging at times. 

 

I cannot believe week five of my student teaching has come and gone! Not only do I have a very long list of important items to accomplish in my time left here, but I also have so much more to learn and experience! As in just a couple short months I will be on my own teaching!! 

(Well fingers crossed anyways)

Winter Term - Week 4

FIRST WEEK TEACHING ALL 7 CLASSES = COMPLETE! :)

One of my personal goals for this week was to work on not getting too stressed out and I think overall I did pretty well on reaching that goal. Monday I worked hard to keep things simple yet effective in my classes and at the end of the day I did not feel as stressed as I have on previous days. Actually, I did not feel too stressed at any point throughout the day. However on Tuesday, I felt very stressed! I am noticing that it seems like for every calm, productive and successful day, there is a stressful, not so prepared day. I need to continue to remind myself that I will not always be completely prepared and that it is okay. I think this will be something I continue to work on for the next few years. 

I am learning how much time it takes to plan, set up, practice and prepare for a lab. It takes a lot of work! I have given two demonstrations so far in two different labs and I felt myself giving a ton of verbal directions and circling back to make sure I covered everything I needed to. I know I definitely need to spend more time practicing my labs ahead of time as well as creating more than one back up plan for the days when something unexpected happens. For example, when several of your students forget to bring a pop bottle for their hydroponic system…

Something that has been going well is I have noticed more and more students asking me questions, content related and personal, instead of my cooperating teacher. This is huge progress I believe because I think it shows that students are becoming more comfortable with me as their teacher and are respecting that. Sometimes I don’t have the answer for them and fall back on my cooperating teacher which is helpful this year but I know next year it will only be me. 

I also want to come up with three or four extra activities or flex activities that I can implement in any of my classes for days we finish the lesson early. I feel as though I have exhausted the activities I have been using for this.

Some strategies I need to work on is containing my frustration when students test me. I felt as though I came close to reaching my breaking point this week with one specific class. I have identified a few select students who have decided to continue to test me and I say bring it on! I know in the future I will have students who will test me in different ways and will challenge my confidence and knowledge as a young female agriculture teacher. 

Last but not least, my class of 8^th graders continue to challenge me in increasing their levels of enthusiasm. They do what is asked of them and complete their assignments. I understand this is a required rotation class for them, but I still want to find ways to get them more energized about what we are learning. A lot of that comes back on me and my lesson planning. Something I am continuing to work on. Maybe I will get some new ideas to test out next weekend at the workshops.