What makes an effective teacher affect lives?

As my senior year opens wide up, a weekly assignment of mine will be to do weekly readings.  After reading the prepared material I have to construct a blog post of what I found most fascinating about the articles.  As well, looking into the future and how I will incorporate such thoughts or ideas to fully get the most out of my student teaching experience.  Today’s readings I greatly enjoyed reading through and jotting down facts and proven theories to be an effective agricultural educator.  The relevance of the material in these articles is powerful for someone new starting out in the profession.

1.      There must be order and structure in an effective classroom.

A clear message that was continually brought up in each article was that of order and structure.  The entirety of this does not consist of an intimidation factor and that there is this feeling of fear when students enter your classroom.  Actually, it has little if anything to do with that.  Having a structured classroom and students knowing the process of which events will occur in your classroom creates an effective learning environment. 

Looking into the future towards my student teaching experience one way I think I will have to set order is by the way I dress.  I’m really not that much older than some of the students I will be teaching.  My daily attire will have to consist of pants, a button up, and tie.  Setting a professional precedence making sure my students understand I am here to increase their skill set than be their friend.   

2.      Variability increases the effectiveness of learning.

Now I know I just said that order and structure are key components of an effective classroom and that students like a routine and rhythm to the work they are doing, but I’m talking about variability by the way you as an educator present the material to your students.  If they aren’t understanding what you are teaching them find a different mode of teaching! 

Through my experiences as a student PowerPoint has been excessively used.  Don’t get me wrong it is a good tool, but can be abused.  I also can remember teachers I had that I knew exactly how their class was going to go.  Those classes and teachers were super boring!  Looking ahead towards my student teaching experience I am working on my creative juices and thinking about what will make a good lesson great!

3.      The effective teacher affects lives!

Wow! Those five words really hit the nail right on top of the head.  But really isn’t that the truth?  Looking back on my academic career so far, teachers who were effective in their teaching did affect my life along with many others.  This spans across all spectrums of the teaching field.  I struggled with math in high school, but I had both effective teachers and ones that weren’t.  I remember the ones who were.

Keeping this statement in mind going forth into my teaching career I think it is one to just reflect on and go back to when maybe you don’t think what you are doing is that important.

4.      Instructional clarity is vital for student success.

No matter what the material it is that you are teaching keep it clear and concise.  Never assume that your students already know something.  And hey even if they do I bet they’ll learn something new they didn’t already.  I’m learning that.  No one knows it all.  Let alone should anyone ever. 

Going forth thinking about creating lesson plans for my students I will always have to keep in mind if what I’m trying to convey to them is clear and understandable.  I think if anything you can never be too detailed.  Then if you have to scale it back you can.

These are just a few of the many important concepts I grasped from my reading today that I felt were extremely important.  Over the summer I was a part of a virtual book club with other agriculture educators all across the nation.  Many concepts spoken about in the book were brought up in the articles I also read today.  Here check out Teach Like A Pirate the book I read this summer.

Lampeter Strasburg Video Visit

Check out my video of my visit to Lampeter Strasburg High School where I will be student teaching Spring of 2016.

 

AEE 412 RTL 8/26/15

Wow it is here fall semester 2015!  Summer was a blast, but nothing can last forever.  I have looked forward to coming back to good ol’ State and get back into my college routine one last time.  I have looked forward to coming back and hanging out with friends and especially my other Ag. Ed majors for one last time as a cohort before we go off to student teach!

Today was a first of many firsts!  I did my first RTL lesson.  At first I was like what is this?  Then I got a bit frustrated when I didn’t know how I was going to teach my peers about the parts of a medieval castle in just fifteen short minutes!  I sat down gave it some thought and my inspiration came from a classic movie a favorite of mine The Dirty Dozen!  While my lesson was by no means one hundred percent successful, I took many key points from it both positive and negative.  I cannot begin to tell you how excited I was when I finally knew what I was going to do for my lesson.  Now I know that feeling teachers have when the light bulb comes on!  With that I felt very confident and was pumped to present my lesson.  Although when Wednesday morning came and I began watching my peers I became a little intimidated and felt maybe I was not completely prepared to present my lesson.  It was too late to turn back now and what is the worse that could happen if it goes wrong and it is just a learning moment of many I have already had and will have.  So I took the bull by the horns and gave it my all when my time came. 

I think that for my first RTL teaching a lesson it went well.  I was discouraged somewhat after I left class, but as the day went on I just told myself it was only a learning moment and can build off of it from there.  I felt for the most part I was prepared.  There were a few parts about who was handing out the material to give to students that messed me up.  I felt for the most part I made up for it on the spot and did my best with what I had.  I certainly feel I had definite concrete objectives for my students.  This lesson presented its challenges and one part that made me super excited about my lesson was the interaction the students would have while learning the material I had presented to them about medieval castles.  I think I had my student’s attention and kept them engaged.  Although, I did not have much discussion or stimulated thinking I kept their curiosity with my silly poem and picture of a medieval castle with all the structural components on the television.  I tried my darndest to make sure my students were able to summarize the parts of a medieval castle. I would give myself a grade of maybe 70%.

For the most part it was fun to get up and teach my peers.  Little intimidating, but we’re all in this together and aren’t going to throw each other under the bus.  I absolutely loved teaching in an informal setting this summer with extension.  Watching myself teach there were components I need to work on and parts I was able to say “hey I didn’t do as bad as I thought!”  When I handed out my test and the answers were there on the second sheet.  Boy did that really make me look stupid, but I collected them quick and instead of standing there freaking out not know what to do for my students so that they could complete my quiz.  I hastily went to the white board and gave them a word bank.  I was impressed by myself on the ability to think on the fly.  Probably, if I was teaching this to students and they went home to tell their parents about their day they would have said you should of seen the joke of a teacher we had today.  At the same time I hope they would realize I was prepared, tried my hardest to teach them the material with what I had, and that they would want to come back for another fun day with the guy who says a lot of umms… and needs to work on that! Hahaha!