And Cut!

It's hard to believe after 15 weeks in the classroom, my time as a student teacher is over. This week mainly consisted of wrapping up lessons with students and saying farewell to them.  I know that I am going to miss my students at Pequea Valley! Wednesday night was the Pequea Valley FFA banquet, so that day was dedicated to setting up and finalizing any banquet items that needed to be bone. During the banquet, I was awarded the Blue and Gold Award of Appreciation for my time spent at Pequea Valley. It has been incredible to work both with Doug and Jasmine and to teach the wonderful students of Pequea! Congratulations to the newly elected officers! 

One thing I will for sure miss are the students! Every class was full of laughter and excitement from the students. People would say I am an energetic and enthusiastic person but that comes from the people I am around. My students always kept me on my toes and never failed to make me laugh! 

On Thursday my large animal science class surprised me with a party! They even created a video for me! They were pretty secretive of about the whole thing because I was totally surprised! We played a couple rounds of Kahoot, which I lost terribly in! I now know I need to brush up on my random animal facts!

I still haven't process that I will no longer be walking into Pequea Valley. I am so proud of nearly 80 students I've had the chance to teach, and I am going to miss them greatly! Thank you Pequea Valley for an incredible and unforgettable experience!

Visiting Greenwood!

In early April I had the opportunity to visit Greenwood High School with Mr. Ruppert! For us student teachers this is a great opportunity to see our cohort members teach in action! I was able to observe four of Ryan's classes; Animal Science, Natural Resources, Food Science, and Agricultural leadership class! The first few periods consisted of students working on projects and passing back assignment. Ryan was in the same situation as I was with it being the end of the marking period, so the period consisted of checking in with students and updating their grades as they pass in assignments.

In his Animal Science class, I noticed digestive systems of chickens! I recently did this with my students! The only difference I saw was my student's used recycled goods or trash for their digestive parts! It was cool to see a similar project but done in different ways!

Some differences I notice I noticed when comparing Pequea and Greenwood is the use of technology. For what I observe most of his classes didn't have a powerpoint with them. It was a lot of hands-on and verbal explanation of directions. At Pequea I always some sort of technology whether that is with a lecture or having directions on the board. His teaching technique seemed more so of a chalkboard and paper type of teaching where I am more likely to integrate technology.

Overall it was a great experience at Greenwood and Mr. Rupport is thriving in student teaching! I am excited about what the future has to offer Ryan as a teacher!

Community Based Instruction with Kiva

Community-Based Unit of Instruction

Overview

Ever since my junior year of college after being enrolled in my first  International Agricultural course, I’ve had an interest in international agriculture. My interest further grew after spending four weeks in Malaysia for an AgEd 2 Malaysia Full-Bright scholarship program. One of the goals for the trip was to promote the integration of international studies in the secondary classroom. In class, I knew I would able to share my experiences, but I wanted my students to have their own experiences. After many hours of research, I came across an organization called Kiva. Kiva is an international nonprofit with a mission to expand financial access to help underserved communities to thrive. Kiva does this by crowdfunding loans, as little as $25 dollars, to borrowers. For my community-based unit of instruction, my virtual agribusiness class researched farmers across the globe with Kiva. By the end of the unit, as a class, we made ten $25 dollar loans to ten farmers in eight different countries!

Seeking Funding

To ensure that every student was able to make a loan to a farmer,  I contacted a representative at Kiva via email to see my options in seeking funding. To my surprise, Kiva was able to provide $25 dollars of vouchers to each of my students. What was needed on my part was the number of students, how I would use the vouchers, and to share our overall experiences with Kiva!

Classroom Instruction

Example of a students poster 

Before distributing loan codes to students they had to complete five assignments. The first assignment was for them to calculate their weekly expenses. An excel sheet was created for them to document their expenses for one week. After calculating their own expenses, we looked at family expenses around the world. In this assignment, they looked up two countries, one considered poor and the other rich and had to answer questions based off of the countries they selected. The overall goal for this assignment was to show that there is income inequality across the globe. This led to students questioning what factors that can lead countries into income inequality. Our third assignment identifies those factors as the 5 P’s of poverty: Place, Past, People, Peace, and Politics. With this assignment students looked at two countries and identify how these 5 P’s led the country to either be in poverty or not. The two countries we looked at were Chad and the United States. This led to the discussion on the poverty cycle and how that keep people in poverty unless an outside source comes in to help. For the fourth assignment, we identified an outside source that can help end poverty-Kiva. In this assignment, students identified Kiva and explained how they use microloans to help underserved communities. After receiving all needed information about Kiva and loans, students were tasked to research and identify a farmer they wanted to make a loan to. For their end of unit projects, students created a poster of their selected farmer and identified the 5 Ps of poverty that may have led them into their current situation to seek funding. After the posters were created, a bulletin board was made from the student's posters, to show how other people can get involved with Kiva and the impact the student had made.

Reflection

This community-based unit was a little different from the rest of my cohorts. Instead of impacting local communities, my students were able to impact communities around the world with their small donations. Kiva is a great way for teachers who struggle with bringing international agriculture to the classroom, instead of going somewhere, you are able to bring the world to your classroom. Through this process, students are able to recognize different cultures also develop empathy for people by seeing how little people can actually live on. For them to learn that the world is much bigger than their backyard is a huge concept, especially for those who don’t get to travel as much. By having students share their experience with the community this allows community members to become involved and to hopefully change their perspective of the world for the better.

DIY

One of our for AEE 495 assignment was to come up with a DIY project (Do it Yourself). After spending some time in the classroom, we decided that I needed to see more of another component of the three circle model of agricultural education-Supervise Agricultural Experience.  For this project, I became one of the three judges, with Carole Fay and Deb Seibert, to interview Red Rose Star candidates. This took place at the Next Generation Ag Day on Thursday, March 14th for the County Public Speaking Contest and Red Rose Star Degrees.  This event is open to all Lancaster County FFA Members to demonstrate their public speaking skills and be recognized for their efforts.

As a team, we came up with questions to asked interviewers based on their SAE experiences.  We. had four applicants in the area of Star Placement, Production, and Agribusiness. To qualify members needed to have their Red Rose Degree. The Red Rose Degrees is the Lancaster County degree, where members need to have at least 75% of the requirements for the Keystone Degree to receive the county degree! Before coming to Lancaster I didn't know that county degree exists but it's a great pathway for students to receive their Keystone because they need to meet essentially the same requirements, but not as many. 

When asking questions there were three areas that we were looking at to connect to their SAE; FFA involvement, classroom connection, and general knowledge of their project.  We divided up the categories and I was in charge of FFA involvement. My questions were based on how being involved in FFA has developed them as a leader and how has it lead to their career interest.  It was incredible to hear the members journey through FFA and much they accredited their involvement to their success and career choice. As I was sitting through these interviews, I reflected on my experiences with FFA and how it had shaped my journey to where I am now. I was able to connect with the members on that same level and able to see their passion for FFA and their SAE projects. 

After the interviews and placing of the candidates. I was able to ask Carole, SAE specialists, a few questions about navigating through SAE and the application process. 

My first question, " What are some areas students and advisors struggle with on the applications?" 

One application that advisor and students struggle on is the American Degree. This is mainly when students start entrepreneurship projects, especially if studnets start their Ag career with the non-current inventory. I learned that the American Degree feeds directly from the AET record books, and if those non-current degrees are not filled out then affect the requirements needed for the entrepreneurship category. Another area where students struggle with is their SAE description. I noticed this when reviewing applications, where students didn't provide enough detail for the reviewer to get the intent of the project. 

Second question, "As a program how often should you check active SAEs?"

This is one area that I was confused about. Often advisors don't check their students SAE projects until a week or two before the deadline. This leads to students scrambling to updating their projects and not providing the full amount of detail needed.  Carole says "it depends on the type of projects that students are doing" however, "if projects are not checked/graded regularly, monthly or bi-weekly, the students will not complete them." Which I can attest to this! At Pequea Valley, students received grades for updating their AET for in-class projects and students were held accountable in updating.  Carole also mentions that it can be a disservice to the students if not updated frequently because students lose out on opportunities to be recognized for their efforts in their projects. As the teacher, you need to be engaged in your students project, as well. The more feedback you provided to students, "the more engaged and proud they will be of their project." At the end of the day, "it's not about the money or prize, it's about what they learned, who they meet, the feeling of accomplishment that they get from completing a project." 

Third question, "What are some strategies you used to get the students involved with an SAE"

Before student teaching, some reason I thought an SAE project had to be outside of the classroom. After student teaching and talking with Carole, I learned that's not true! A key thing to remember is that SAE is tied to the classwork, so every student should complete some type of SAE project. A great way to start members on projects is foundational projects. Carol says "each student can choose a topic, but the format of the project is determined by the teacher" With these types of projects I was stuggling to determine the timeline, thinking that they need to last a year or throughout the students experience in the program. I quickly learned that there is not a set time requirement for each of the projects. They can be short term project that last two weeks or they can last up to four years. The overall goal for the project is that students are showing some sort of growth. Which leads to my next question.

"What makes a solid project and/or application?"

Carole provided solid advice for this question, "Solid SAE projects, in the case of proficiencies; they are based on growth: not necessarily money, but, growth, in skills, knowledge, and overall experience." She provided an example of a livestock project, where the project is not only to be focused on the show ring but, on the skills learned getting there. My biggest take away from this question is solid projects are based on growth and documenting that growth. 

My last questioned I asked was "As an advisor how can you make sure your students are prepared for SAE interviews?"

Sitting through the interviews some students were more prepared than others and I. wondered how you as an advisor can set up your students with success when interviewing. Carole suggested that you start preparing your students ahead of time. This can be as little as practicing interviewing questions once a week or invite a community member in to interview. Another solid piece of advice I received was, have students prepare a two-minute introduction of themselves and their projects.  This is a great way for students to relate their SAE projects and Ag classes to their future plans! To end Carole says"Bottom Line: you wouldn't expect a person to play pro football without practice, this is the same thing."

Overall, I learned a lot about  SAE and how to effectively include it in the classroom! I am excited to see how I can include SAE into the classroom whenever I enter the classroom in the future. 

Interviewing with an Administrator

I had a great opportunity to conduct a mock interview with Pequea Valley School District superintendent, Dr. Erick Orndorff. I have Dr. O on numerous occasions throughout my time at Pequea Valley. In our interview, we went over a couple of questions and tips on interviewing with a superintendent.

The first question was, "How do would you use technology in the classroom?" Pequea Valley is known for its integration of technology in the classroom. Luckily for me, I spent the past 15 weeks in school, so I able to share my experiences with technology. I provided good answers, but to make it stronger, DR.O suggested I mention the SAMR Ladder. Which is a model of tech integration into the classroom, to help educators become comfortable with technology, and to help students develop important 21st-century skills at each of the four levels.   The four levels are Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition.  It was interesting to hear that I was meeting a couple of levels without even knowing, but by referring to this SAMR Model, it would make my answers stronger.

Another questioned that was asked was, "How will you ensure students first choice". The formula that Dr. O gave me was Knowlege + Experience x relation = first choice. To answer this question I was able to use the Three Circle Ag Ed model. With knowledge being classroom instruction,  experience being SAE, and relation being FFA.  I also shared my experience with Agricultural education and how it brought me to my "first choice".  Dr. O mentioned a lot about customizing content to students first choice, and if I am able to show how I can individualize a program for students,   I would be a highly desirable candidate.

Overall, I think was a great experience! Some areas that I need to strengthen is making connections between educational models. By being cognitive about that connection would strengthen my answers. It seems like I am already including those strategies in my instructions but by recognizing them and showing that I am intentionally doing them will strengthen my interview. I am glad that I had this experience even though I am not going into the classroom right away. I look forward to seeing how I can include my experiences in the classroom in the future!

Science Teacher

Early this week I had the opportunity to observe Ms. Jennifer Brooks, a biology teacher. Ms. Brooks also teaches forensic, environmental science, and AP Biology! The class I sat in was her 10th-grade Biology class!

The objectives for the class were posted on her slides and she went over each of them with the class. A couple of them were more so the review for the class but some were new to the students. The objectives for the class are tied to the  Biology Keystone Exam that every tenth grader has to take.

The class began with five retrieval questions posted on the board. These questions were closely related to content that was covered in previous class sessions. Students had about five minutes to answer the questions, then Ms. Brooks went over them with the class. I thought this was a great way to see where students are with the content. These questions will also be on the Keystone exam, so students are able to become familiar with the questions beforehand. She mentioned that a lot of her class time, if not most, goes to preparing for the keystone.

From what I observe there was a lot of variability in the class. The outline of the class was:

• Retrieval Questions 
• Review/Lecture
• Independent 
• Video/Discussion 
• Independent work 
• Class discussion

All the students were engaged in the class and participated. Ms. Brook showed a lot of enthusiasm in the content and the students responded well.  The class size was relatively small with eight students, but that gave Ms. Brook the ability to check in with each student progress. 

Overall Ms. Brooks is an awesome teacher and it's clear she has a passion for teaching and biology!

No Pain No Gain

This week was full of unexpected and expected events! To be honest, my week started off pretty

rough. I had two flat tires and was trying to deal with a tooth that was causing a ton of pain. Monday morning rolled around I had my tires fixed and I popped a ton of Advil for my tooth. I tried my best to ignore the pain and gave my full attention to the students. At the moment each class felt longer than the last and it was becoming hard to focus. Finally, the day ended and I decided it was time to see a dentist.

Looking back now I probably should have scheduled an appointment sooner but I didn't want to miss school, especially because it being the last couple of weeks of student teaching. By not listening to my body I ended up getting an infection, high blood pressure, and fever. All this caused me to miss two days of schools.

From this, I learned you need to listen to your body. If you are unwell and need time off it's not okay to take that time to recover. By pushing things off is only going to make things worst. I have a missing tooth now for proof.

Though my week started off rough; it ended it great! Thursday we had the members compete at the Easter Region LDE's and I was able to judge Senior Prepared Public Speaking.  In total, I judge and watched eight incredible speeches! Each speech was unique and ranged from a variety of topics.  I was glad to have this opportunity to judge this event because I didn't have much experience in this LDE so it was nice to see what it takes to participate in this event.  Some takeaways from this event are:

• Have students present their speeches to community 
• Make studnets limit their bias opinions  
• Have student talk to judges aftward to ask for helpful tips

Overall, students do an awesome job with speeches! 

Another cool opportunity I had this week was to attend the Lancaster Volleyball Tournament! This event was open to all Lancaster chapters! There were five chapters represented with a total of five teams. All the advisors came together to form one time. I don't know how but we ended up being the second place team! This was a super cool event!

One thing I love about Lancaster County is they provide a lot of opportunities for their chapters to come together and mingle. So far I've been able to see Public speaking events, agricultural mechanic event, record bookkeeping event, and now this tournament.  I am not sure what the other counties do but it is clear that Lancaster is the place to be!

Somethings to consider when choosing a program:

• How involved are surrounding chapters?
• Would it be possible to collaborate on events?
• Possible to run mock CDE for practice? 

With one week left I am excited to see how I can maximize my student teaching!

The Big 13

It's hard to believe that I've been in the classroom for 13 weeks! It's crazy how fast time flies when you are having fun with students! This week was STRESSFUL more so because it was the end of the marking periods. Students were scrambling around trying to submit homework and I have to track students down for any missing assignments! Even with all the stress, we were able to make it through!  One thing I am really bad at is reminding students to turn in assignments and I would assume if I said it one then they should know.  In high school, we were given planners and told us to write our due dates down because the teachers weren't going to repeat the dates. A nice tip I received was to add a reminder slide to help students and also me when assignments are due.

A goal of mine was to include more activity in the classroom and stay away from notes for a little bit.
I was able to do this in most of the classes last week. In large animal science, students were in charge of creating a reproductive technology presentation. Students seemed to have a lot of fun with this too!  In horticulture, our topic for this week was asexual propagation with Twizzlers and pretzels. Students performed grafting and air layering with the treats and they had a blast! This was a very creative lesson and I would love to bring in move creativity but sometimes struggle to come up with activities. More forward I really want to focus on being a facilitator of learner!

Teachers, what great sources have you used to bring more creativity in the classroom?

Week 12 of Student Teaching!

It's hard to believe that I just complete twelve weeks of student teaching! It's even harder to believe this was my first full week of classes since nearly February! Every week we either had some sort of interruptions that caused us to have a shortened week. So having a full week of classes was noticeable but nice to have!

This week in large animal science we focused on genetics! I finally was able to use the foldable that I received in NAAE back in late November! I quickly realized that this activity took a  lot more time than expected, never overestimate students cutting and taping abilities. One thing I would change if I were to do this activity is to have step-by-step instructions with pictures to help build the foldable. I thought if I had directions on the board and me walking around with a sample would be enough, but students still struggled. 

At first, I was a little nervous to include foldable into the lesson but I haven't done them before and wasn't quite sure on how to introduce them. But I am glad I do! Overall, the students really liked them! It was a nice break from guided notes and gave students an interactive way to receive information!  

With the last remaining weeks, I want to challenge myself even further on introducing new activities into the classroom! Foldable was a good risk! So I am looking forward to seeing what other risks I can take to increase student learning! If anyone has some cool and interactive lessons I could use send them my way! 

Urban AG

This week the PSUAgEd19 cohort spent some time outside of the classroom for our spring retreat! The first part of our trip was spent delivering Project Learning Tree lessons. Each of us prepared a 15-minute lesson on one of the activities in the books. We all were asked to choose different lessons so we could see the variety of lessons that the book had to offer. I loved that we were able to see how everyone changed the lessons to meet the needs of their students. I heavily relied on the Project Learning Tree this semester and has been an awesome resource!

After our PLT activities, we were off to Baltimore to see a new side of agricultural education! We spent Thursday morning at Hampstead Hill Academy, an elementary school! The Academy offered a class Food For Life. Where students learn about nutrition and how to eat healthily. The students were prepping their salads as we were walking in and we had the chance to taste them! Students were totally engaged with preparing salads and the whole time students were active.  I am quite familiar with working with elementary aged students. For the past few summers, I was a camp counselor and spent a lot of time working with campers and the farm that camp had. I had forgotten how much fun and eager younger kids were until visiting the academy!

We visited a couple of other locations where they focused on urban agriculture. One location had a computerized shipping container that has was made into an indoor garden, where students were growing basils and lettuce. Urban Ag was something that I was not too familiar with but the trip provided a great insight into what it is and how it would look like!

We ended the trip with us working on a project for a newly stated charter school. Our project will include creating 4-6 g raised beds for students. This charter school was unique because it was founded by a group of mothers who didn't like the elementary school in their hometown and wanted to create a better school for their kids.  I thought this was incredible and couldn't imagine the amount of work and dedication that these mothers had to put to start this school. The school is planned to open up this Fall, so I am excited to see how our project will turn out for them!

Overall that has been one of my favorite trips with PSUAgEd19! It was awesome to see another side of agricultural education. Recently I have accepted a position with the
 Peace Corps, as an Urban Agriculture Extension Agent.  This trip really provided with insight on other opportunities to be involved in agriculture education, if I decide not to head into the classroom afterward. 

SAE Visit #2

My second SAE visit was with a junior in the Pequea Ag Program. His SAE is in the category of placement for the work he does at Hooberinc! This student SAE project is assembling and servicing Kubota equipment. This is a unique opportunity for the student because this project was set-up at an internship through Pequea Valley FFA.  Mr. Masser and Mrs. Vansant reached out to Hooberinc to set up this partnership. The goal is to provide students with real-life experiences and provide Hooberinc with skilled individuals who are eager to learn!

We arrived at Hoober Inc at 3:00pm. We were greeted by the students boss who gave us an overview of what the student was doing and how they were performing. After that, we met up with the student who gave us a tour of his work.  As we were walking through the shops, the student would tell us the projects he was working on. The tour concluded with questions about his work that included:

• What is your day to day task?
• Who do you talk to when you have a question?
• Do you feel comfortable asking questions?
• What do you like and dislike about the job?
• How does this project aligned with your career goals?

Overall I was very impressed with the visit. This student has the opportunity to work with equipment that costs thousands of dollars. He's gaining new skills in mechanics, getting paid, and receiving credit for school. Pequea Valley does an excellent job helping students set up a project and providing opportunities for them to pursue an interest related to their career goals!

I look forward to seeing how I could include a program like this for my future students!

A Week Load of Student Accomplishments

Week 10 brought tons of excitement and opportunity to dive deeper into agricultural education. This week I spent a lot of time interviewing and seeing how FFA has impacted students when running for chapter office and county degrees.

Wednesday I served as a member of the 2019-2020 Garden Spot FFA Officer Team Selection Committee at Lampeter-Strasburg High School. This gave me a unique opportunity to see how other chapters select their officer.  Every chapter is a little different when it comes to selecting a chapter officer. Garden Spot has three parts to their selection; application, membership vote, and interviews with the selection committee. I was on a committee with three other representatives. A high school teacher, an agricultural extension agent, and an industry leader/community person. I like how Garden Spot brings in different members part of the community. This helps grow the student's network, but it also allows community members to see the impressive works that the chapter does. By the end of the night, we were able to slate seven officers in positions. Members will find out the results at the banquet in a couple of weeks.

Another excellent opportunity I had this week was serving as a judge for the Red Rose Star Interviews. This event was the Next Generation Ag Day at the Farm and Home Center, where chapters from all over Lancaster came to compete in the County Public Speaking Contest and Red Rose Star Interviews. It was my pleasure to work with Carole Fay and Deb Seibert both rockstars retired Ag teachers! I was blown away by the number of work students had put into their SAE projects! For most parts, students were able to articulate their thoughts and share their SAE with us. It was exciting to see the range of SAE projects and the backgrounds the students had. Some students came from family farms, and others did not, but they sought out opportunities to develop their SAE. By the end of the interviews, we placed a star in Agribusiness, Placement, and Production! Next step for them is states! As judges were able to give them some remarks on how to strengthen their application and interviews so they'll be ready for the state convention in June. Working with Carole Fay and Deb Seibert was awesome! It was great to hear about their programs and how to navigate SAE, especially with applications.

To end the week three groups Pequea Valley FFA members were recognized at state convention and had the opportunity to go to the Big E to compete! This was another great way to show the impact FFA has on students and the benefits an Ag program has to offer to students!

e School Board meeting. The first to be recognized were members who received their Keystones at the Mid-Winter convention. The second group was first-year members who received their FFA jacket at Mid-Winter. The last group to be recognized as the Poultry CDE team. They placed second at

Overall this has been a very busy week but full of student recognition and accomplishments!

Ticket-Out

Week 9 was weirder than the rest with scheduling. This week we had a two-hour delay, two half days, and a full day off on Friday. So planning for this week was a little hectic! It's been a challenge to prepare content for the week when there's only about an hour and a half of instructional time! But with all the delays this week went pretty smoothly.

One cool opportunity I had this week was to sit in and watch a couple of senior presentations. Pequea Valley requires seniors to present presentations as part of their requirement for graduation. This is the first year of them doing it, so it was new to everyone. Presentations are about 15 minutes long with questions from the judges at the end. The presentations are for seniors to showcase their accomplishments from the past four years and how they are prepared to enter college or the workforce after graduation. 

The few I watched were my current seniors in class. It was great for me to see their journey through high school and FFA. It was incredible to see how being part of the Ag Ed program, and FFA has shaped them into who they are now. They credited a lot of their success to the Ag program and how FFA gave them direction to what they wanted to pursue after high school. 

When I was a senior in high school, my ag teacher had the seniors do a presentation as well. As I sat and watched I remember my time in my Ag program with all the experiences I had. It gave me a path to pursue just as it did for these seniors.  

A question I have is, do other schools or chapters have seniors do some sort of senior presentations as a ticket out of the program? 

Can you hear me now?

Hoooooold up! It's been eight weeks? That is so crazy to think!  A lot has happened these past few weeks among all the delays and cancellations. This past week I was especially excited to pick up my fifth class, Horticulture! Overall, the group of students is awesome and have a lot of personalities! This is by far my biggest class with the number of students in it; a total of 22!

Out of all the excitement, I quickly realized that this will be my most challenging group. This is not because of behavior issues but the amount of energy this class has. These kiddos are ENERGETIC. There's a mix of 9-12 graders, and they all get along so well. A challenge that I foresee with this group and have experienced a little bit is wrangling them in.  A couple of times I lost the group for a bit with their side conversations and had to use my TEACHER voice to bring back their attention because they are not listening.

I've worked with elementary students at camp, and when this would happen, I would use silly techniques like "1.2.3. Eyes on me", "if you hear my voice clap once," and my personal favorite performing a clapping pattern and them repeat it back to me. It worked well with my campers, and they became well conditioned (Shout out to Pavlov). To me, these seem a little immature for my students but will those techniques work? I LOVE the energy that my students provide and I don't want to threaten it by invoking some sort of punishment when students start chatting.  I want to preserve my voice and the energy of the class.

I'm curious to hear what others do in terms of bringing the class attention back on you!

SAE Night

At the end of January, Pequea Valley hosted an SAE night for current members to work on their AET record keeping books. The event started right after school at 2:25 and lasted until 5:30. Before the event, I had to brush up on working with AET. My last exposure to it was in 2016 in AEE 311 so after spending five minutes on the site; I quietly became familiar with it. 

We had about 10 attend with various types of projects such as: working at a fish hatchery, horticulture operations, dairy operation, etc. The students that came in the majority of their projects were in placements that I have observed. 

The structure of the event was pretty relaxed. Students came in grabbed a checklist and start updating their books. What I noticed with some student is that they forget to update their books daily or even weekly, so they spent a lot of time looking through calendars and pay stubs. The checklist that they had walked them through what they needed on AET. Such as their profiles, skills developed, and the number of entries.  As students were making these updates, Doug and Jasmine would sit down with each student asking questions about their projects and clarifying any issues that they had, especially when it came to the financial section. 

Overall the event was a success! This would definitely be something that I would do in the future! It's a great way to get students record systems updated and be promoted a chapter social event. Students were able to get the feedback needed along with tons of candy and pizza. 

Hatching Chicks!

 Today we set up the incubator for our eggs! We have 11 eggs that were donated by a community member that students will monitor until they will hatch. We are unsure what type of chickens they will be but that surprise adds more fun for the students.

When I was in high school we had hatched eggs in class too. Every day we would have to check the humidity, temperature, and rotate the eggs. I remember everyone wanting to do this so they would rush into class just so they can be the first. It was a little competitive back in my chapter!

For students who don't necessarily have an ag background, this is a cool way from them to see a small part of live agriculture. They get to take ownership of caring for the eggs and hopefully see the benefits of them hatching.

After we hatched the eggs in high school, I can't remember what we did with the chicks.  A question I have for any teacher who is reading, what do you do we classroom animals? My thought was to see if students would like to take them home. After signing permission slips from a parent or guardian but how do you know if the chickens are going to be cared for? Or what happens if they no longer want the chicken so they bring it back? I'm curious to hear what you all do with temporary classroom animals!

Sense of Gratitude!

Woah! Can't believe it been five weeks since I started student teaching! It amazes me how much time flies by when you are enjoying it! This week I taught a total of three classes: Large Animal Science, Power Technology, and Ag Biology. All of these courses are content heavy! When planning it can sometimes get a little stressful. One thing I don't worry about is my skills in relationship building because, to everyone else, I am known to be laid back, energetic, and full of enthusiasm. Relationship building was never an issue for me.

It wasn't until this week that I start worrying about it whether or not I am forming relationships with

my students. Have I been too focused on content that I forgot to get to know my students? Have I built a wall around myself?  It's true that sometimes I struggle with finding that line between being a teacher and being too laid back. All these thoughts were running through my head, so maybe I did build a wall in fear of crossing that line and not getting the respect I needed as a teacher. I had to take a moment to reflect and think about my past interactions with my students. Had I done enough? I remembered all their names within the first week of classes, we've talked about their interest, and in class, we make jokes and laugh. With it being only week three of actually teaching I felt I had a solid foundation. Yet, I still second guessed myself. 

It wasn't until this week that I think I may have found that line. Last Friday I've I had a student say "Mr.C I appreciate how relatable you are" and other students in the class agreed.  This was from a group that I see every other day and only had for about two weeks so you think the rapport hasn't been established. This was a massive moment for me and I was extremely thankful for that comment. It was a realization that the wall I've built wasn't as high as I thought it was. It was a good indicator to know that I am on the right track! Now that I've set a solid foundation.

I am looking forward to strengthening my relationship with my students.

For my virtual mentors or anyone else who reads my blog; how do you strengthening relationships with students without forcing one on them? 

ACES!

Last Weekend, I joined Pequea Valley FFA for a trip to Harrisburg for ACES, which was a two day, one-night conference. Our trip started Saturday morning with us loading into the red Pequea Valley vans.     It was a smooth ride to Harrisburg for about an hour and 15 minutes from Pequea. We left early enough that we were able to stop at Chic-fil-a for lunch! Which seemed to be a favorite for PA FFA members, since there were ten other chapters there!

Check-in went pretty smoothly with our members; we brought five members to ACES, so the numbers were easy to work with.  Members had workshops all day and teachers had a workshop on NOCTI scores, where they were provided insight on how to analyze scores.   I sat in for a bit of the presentation then left to work on lesson planning with Olivia. It's great to talk to fellow cohort member because they understand what you are going through and sometimes need to vent.

Dinner was a unique opportunity! I got roped into embarrassing your ag teacher activities. It wasn't too bad the only thing I had to do was try to come up with questions as fast of possible! I ended up placing second (thanks to state office). The student seemed to enjoy this activity! Mainly because you get to see another side of your teacher!

Doug and I were signed up for night checks with students. That was an exciting experience. We only caught one student out of their room and had to tell a couple of rooms to quiet down. Walking through the halls made me remember my time in FFA and the excitement of staying at hotels with friends.  So noise was expected, but for the most part, the students were respectful.

Overall, ACES was a great experience! Students seemed to love this conference. As an advisor, it's a great conference to bring first-year members. It's not long at all plus member receive a ton of information and participate in a relaxed community service event.

Weather Trifecta

This week was exciting, to say the least! Monday morning started off strong! I was able to finish my lessons on time and had no issue what so ever! Then Tuesday came around with bone-chilling weather and snow! Pequea decided to send everyone home by 11'oclock to try to avoid the storm, so my lesson was cut short. On Wednesday we had a two-hour delay so again had to shorten lessons. Then Thursday we had a snow day! This week was a weather trifecta of early releases, two-hour delays, and snow days!

One thing I learned from this is you can't control the weather, but one thing you can control is your response to mother nature. At first, I was little flustered and panicking about covering content; not knowing what keep or to cut out.  I was worried that my students would think that I am unprepared and not knowing what I am doing. As my students were entering the room. I realized that my students have no idea of what my instructional outline looks like. It was a friendly reminder, even at week three, that I am in control of what I cover. This is comforting and also terrifying!

Snow will not slow you down! Thursday I spent the night with Lancaster Ag teachers on grading student's SAE record books! Every year they hold a record-keeping contest for Lancaster students SAE projects. It's a great way for students to get feedback and make adjustments for state convention!  This was such a cool experience because I was able to see another side of Ag Ed; behind the scenes of student achievements. The more I traveled down this path of agricultural education I realized that student achievement is like an iceberg. Student success may be the cap of the iceberg above the water, but there's whole lotta ice below the surface supporting the cap, this contest serving as a chunk of ice.  I am excited to dive deeper into ag ed to see how I can get my future students to achieve that iceberg cap.

My final thought for this week is a question for my virtual mentoring team. How do you make sure you don't get caught up in cancelations and delays? 

So it begins!

Week three of student teaching and I am exhausted! A big question I had for the week is how do teachers last all day!? I am no stranger to long days. When I was on campus I would wake up every day at 5:30 am for practice then wouldn't go to bed until 11pm. That was my routine for nearly three years, and I came accustom to it. Now, I find myself tired through random parts of the day and heavily relying on coffee!

Awning aside, this has been an awesome week! I started teaching my large animal science class! So far I love my students! They participate and have made me feel so welcomed! This week we covered the basics: setting up AET, classroom procedures, and getting to know each other.

I am looking forward to diving deeper in content next week by starting off with animal domestication! 

One challenge I had this week is incorporating my digital notebooks! It's a lot harder to include it then I thought. I realize once students save them to their drives I am unable to edit them if I wanted to make changes. I pre-made the first two units of them and I'm afraid that's going to pigeon hole me if I wanted to change content. This is the first week I will be using the digital notebooks, so if they are a bust, I may consider taking them out of the curriculum. 

A personal goal I have this week is to be more clear with directions and have pictures on powerpoint to assist with them. I had directions on the board that were bulleted but students were still confused. A tip I got from both my cooperating teachers is to walk the students through the directions, especially when having them log in to websites. It may make sense to me but for studnets, it can be really confusing. 

I am wicked excited to start off next week!

PA Farm Show!

Can't believe I finished my first week of student teaching! I haven't officially started teaching, but it's a  still a mile marker. My week started at the Mid Winter Convention for PA FFA on Monday! Pequea Valley had three keystone recipients, and an additional four students received their first FFA jacket. Being a convention brought back my memories of earning my first FFA jacket and my state degree. Back then those were huge accomplishments for me that launch me into this crazy journey of Ag Ed. The last few days I have been observing classes and getting to know some of the students that I'll be teaching. They are interesting, to say the least, but I can't wait until I actually teach team! As of now, I have one more week of observation then I start off with large animal science!