Problem Based Learning

This weeks weekly investment is centered around problem-solving. One of the readings that I found to be very interesting was The 8 Essentials for Project-based Learning. The essentials for project-based learning are:

1. Significant Content
2. A Need to Know
3. A Driving Question
4. Student Voice and Choice
5. 21st Century Skills
6. Inquiry and Innovation
7.  Feedback and Revision
8. Publicly Presented Product.




Some of these essentials I was familiar with and really didn't overthink them, but the one that surprised me the most was 21st-century skills. By having these project-based learning students are learning and strengthing 21st skills without putting much thought into it. These skills include collaboration, communication, critical thinking and the use of technology. I think its pretty cool that these projects can really focus on these skills in an engaging way for the students.


As I read,  I remember doing projects in my ag class that included these essentials. One project was centered around agricultural issues. We had to choose a topic, research it, form groups, write an essay, and do a presentation on it. The guidelines were pretty simple,
and as a class, we learned a lot! It was definitely one of my favorite projects!

Moving forward I am excited to learn more about project-based learning and how I can include it during my student teaching experience at Pequea Valley High School!

Unit 1 is DONE

My first unit plan has been submitted! Initially, when I was writing the plan, I was nervous and confused. I was struggling and had no idea where to start. The unit I chose to workout was Plumbing. I will be teaching plumbing for about 3 weeks in The Intro to Ag Mech course at Pequea Valley. I picked this unit because we recently did a copper square project in AEE 350 so the idea of that project was fresh in my mind.

Typically I wouldn't plan a unit around a project but since I was struggling to pick one plumbing seemed like a good start. At first daily objectives were impossible for me to come
up with. But as I began writing them and pulling from resources it became a lot easier. Another area I struggle with was coming up with accommodations and adaptions for gifted and exceptional students. But an idea I got from my workforce ed class was I can assign gifted students as helpers and have them assist other students so they are part of the learning.

It was nice to get reviews from my peers before submitting the final draft. They were able to pick up on some mistakes that I overlooked and provided areas of improvement. It was great to hear about areas where I did well, so that really boosted my confidence in writing a unit plan. I'm glad that the first one is out of the way and looking forward to writing my other units with more confidence!

Week 6 Investment

How do we transition between techniques utilizing effective questioning?

This week our readings are based on effective questioning, and how we can use them to enhance our student's learning. One of the reading states "questions can do more than measure what students know."  We can use questions to encourage students to explore and refine their understanding of key concepts by asking challenging, engaging, and effective questions. Asking questions can help teachers know if students understanding the material and can also help students retain information by rewarding unarticulated thoughts.

In my classroom plan, I listed "Ask Questions" as one of my procedures. I want my students to know that it's okay to ask questions throughout the class. For me, as a future educator, I can gauge where my students are at with the material and make changes if students are not understanding. For students, to get them thinking about the content and opens up a discussion to the class. Students can listen to how others are thinking about the material and provides them with another perspective. 

This week I am excited to see how I can use effective questions in the classroom!

Interest Approach Lab

This week in lab it was all about interest approach. We were able to come up with a "hook" to get out students attention. For my interest approach, I chose to us the bone dance video from Hannah Montanna to introduce the anatomy of livestock. I chose to use this video because it was a fun way for students to see that the bones we have in our body are the same ones found in animals. Also, everyone is familiar with Hannah Montanna!

Looking at lab, I wrote down two gems and one opportunity for improvement. My first gem was the Bone dance video, I chose this because it was relevant and something that students would know. My second gem was how I divided the students up. Each student was given an animal and had to act it out to find their groups. With these two activities, I was able to use all three domains of learning. My opportunity for improvement is working on how I give directions. Sometimes I missed details in directions have to go back and reexplain the directions.

After this week, I am excited to develop more interest approach to get my students hooked on the content!

Virtual Exploration Part One

For our first virtual exploration assignment our mentors had to answer the following prompt; What is your teaching philosophy and/or core values as an agriculture educator?

In each of my mentor interviews, they brought up the fact of respecting the students. Whether that was respecting them as individual learners and knowing their abilities or being honest with them and not beating around the bush when talking to them. 

One of my mentors mentioned that she believes in progress, not project-based learning. This ties in with Daniel Pink's book Drive that we read over the summer. We talked about how it's important for students to know that they are making progress and not just completing an assignment or project to just get the grade, but showing mastery of content. 

We also talked about inclusiveness in the classroom. In Ag ed there are so many different opportunities for students to be involved and have an active role in the classroom. One of my mentors mentioned building a community in the classroom, where students feel comfortable with working together and taking risks. 

Another thing that everyone mentioned was the three circle model and making sure everything they do ties in one of the three circles.

The last thing we talked about is how your philosophy will change as you teach, your core values may stay the same but the way you look at student success can differ. I am excited to see how my philosophy will change as  I grow as a teacher with my students. 

Weekly Investment 5

This weeks weekly investment is focused on techniques we can include in our classroom instruction. From the readings, I learned that objectives are essential in challenging students to think. Objectives provide a roadmap for students in a class. They give students a sense of direction on where the class is in lecture. When writing objectives, it is important to use verbs and to be observed with some sort of measurements. Action-measurable verbs lead to clarity which begins to stretch the cognitive processing of students (Whittington).

One chart I found helpful in the readings had a ton of vocabulary words useful for developing objectives. The chart had four headings to simplify Bloom's Taxonomy of the Cognitive Domain. Remembering-Knowledge level;Processing- Comprehensive, Application, and Analaysis level; Creating- Synthesis level; Evaluating-Evaluation.

Remembering would be the lower level of cognitive thinking and Evaluating would be at the higher end. When writing objectives, I learned it's important to match the level of cognitive objectives to the level of the teaching. In other words, if your objectives are set to a lower level of cognitive like remembering, then you must teach at the lower level of cognitive. This helps limit student frustrations and avoid students giving up on content.

Before these reading, I struggled with writing objectives and not knowing if I was using the correct verbs. This week I am excited too what else I can learn about writing objectives!

RTL Lab Reflection 2

This past Wednesday we were tasked to come up with a lesson plan for our first day of school. In lab, we shared 10 minutes of our lesson plan. Before going to into lab, I was excited and prepared to teach. Little did I know that my peers were going to assume the roles of students and act out their behaviors. The behaviors included: a bully, disengage student, a student on their phone, and a teacher's pet. Even though there were only four of them. They were the toughest group of students I have ever had. I've been reasonably confident in my abilities in managing students because I've been a camp counselor for the past three years. I would have to handle 15 campers to myself and surely thought four students would be a breeze. In my opinion, I think the behaviors were way over the top and not realistic in a school setting, but it did help me get a sense of behaviors I could be exposed to. Some of the tactics I would use with my campers didn't quite work with my lab students. I left my lab frustrated, but my next step is looking at more classroom management tools to prepare me for those unexpected behaviors.

Pequea Valley's Agricultural Program!

Take look at the video I made of Pequea Valley's Agricultural Program!

TOOLKIT

The last part of DRiVE talks about a Toolkit to help put the ideas from the book into actions. They are all concentrating on ways to build intrinsic motivation. 

Build Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose into Assignments

• Offer students autonomy over how and when to work.
• Promote mastery by giving engaging task rather than just a regurgitation of something already covered.
• Share the purpose of assignments and of the course 

Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE) 

• Students still need to meet goals and do the assignments, but as long as they achieve their goals, they can work whenever and wherever they want.
• One way this can be done is set a day when students can work on whatever they want. But the catch is they have to do something. 

Conduct Anonymous Surveys of Autonomy and Purpose 

Ask questions like "how much autonomy do you have over your assignments?" and "what's the purpose of the class." As a teacher, you may be surprised by the inaccuracy from your students. 

Give Yourself Performance Reviews

Whether it's Beyonce or Tom Brady seeking feedback is essential for growth. To help with this give yourself performance reviews. You can set performance and learning goals at the beginning of the month, and then evaluate your performance at the end. This helps you identify areas that need work or explain why certain items are not being completed. 

When student teaching my hope is to use some of these tools to help motivate my students!

Planning for Instruction

From the readings, I learned that's important to have the end in mind when coming up with the curriculum a way to do that is using the UbD framework.  UbD frameworks is a three-stage planning process that helps guide and structured curriculum.

Stage 1- Identify Results

Key questions:

• What should students know, understand, and be able to do?
• What is the ultimate transfer we seel as a result of this unit?
• What essential questions will be explored in-depth and provide focus to all learning?

In this stage, you look at the goals and standards that you have to follow. Due to lack of time, you have to prioritize what you teach. 

Stage 2- Determine Assessment Evidence

Key questions:

• How would you know if students have achieved the desired results?
• How will we evaluate student performance in fair and consistent ways? 

In the UbD framework, there are six facets of understanding for assessment: 

• Explain 
• Interpret
• Apply
• Perspective
• Empathy
• Self-knowledge 

All of these facets don't have to be used in every assessment because some are hard to use in a specific context. In stage two you are assessing everything you want to accomplish in stage one. 

Stage 3- Plan Learning Experiences and Instruction

Key questions:

• How will we support learners as they come to understand important ideas and processes?
• What activities, sequence and resources are the best suited to accomplish our goals?

In this stage, teachers plan out the activities of the lesson. An issue that teachers face here is when teaching is primarily focused on presenting information and not for understanding. When you teach for understanding, students are given opportunities to make connections and generalizations for themselves.

I am excited to learn more about planning for instruction this coming week!