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! 

Junetastic Madness

          Announcements, announcements, announcements, second verse same as the first a little bit louder and a whole lot worse.  Just had to get the last of my inner camper spirit out of me.  Wow has the month of June flown by.  It has been filled with work activities, workshops, and camp just to name a few. 

            Recently we held our first ever county livestock day.  Roughly 60 4Hers attended.  This event was put on by the extension office at our local fair grounds.  Interest within the community has grown to raise livestock animals and/or show them at the fair.  Local members from the community who have ties to the livestock industry came and gave their advice and expertise to 4Hers with livestock production books and/or show animals.  With tremendous community support we had animals of every breed brought so the 4Hers could practice on live animals. 

            This past week was 4-H camp at Camp Brule for Bradford, Tioga, Susquehanna, Sullivan, and Wyoming counties.  We had over two hundred 4Hers show up ranging in ages from eight to eighteen!  The days were filled with swimming, canoeing, leather making, fishing, rifle and shotgun shooting, hiking, outdoor cooking, animal dissection, and crafts to name just a few.  The weather wasn’t exactly sunny and 75, but we had a blast in the rain and mud.  Nights were filled with campfire, group skits, and s’more making.  For morning workshop I assisted with animal dissection.  The first day we examined flies with magnifying glasses, broke apart corn stalks to understand germination, and built wooden bugs.  The second day the group dissected two cow reproductive tracts.  One was open meaning it was not pregnant. And the other had a five month old calf in it.  The final day we took water samples and examined what was in the water and dissected two cow hearts and a tongue.  The seven kids in our group had super great questions and it was great having the nurse assist in our workshop the day we dissected the hearts.  It made the learning experience a lot more meaningful than coming from a couple of extension agents.  In the afternoon I ran the fishing workshop.  I greatly enjoy covering this workshop.  Helping and watching the kids fish really is quite the sight and always provides a good laugh.  I can’t begin to tell you the number of fish hooks I tied, the number of worms I hooked, lines I pulled out of trees, and yanking hooks out of fishes’ mouths.  But, it was all well worth it watching a first time camper catch their first fish and helping others with a disability be able to fish.  Only one boy got hooked and he took it like a champ and was greeted by girls everywhere asking about his battle wound.

            With camp now over things are busier than ever in the office still.  We have exactly one month until our county fair!  The dairy entries are piling up and I am submitting them to construct our show catalog.  Dairy day is also this coming Monday and we are all really excited about that.  This year we are changing it up a little bit.  In the morning the 4Hers will learn how to properly fit and show their animal.  In the afternoon they will learn how to read a pedigree and we are going to conduct a mock auction!  With our county deeply rooted in the dairy industry and many of our 4Hers owning registered animals.  We believe these skills are important to possess. 

            Along with all this I am continuing to scout my soybean sentinel plot along with five other soybean fields geographically dispersed throughout the county.  Information such as plant population, growth stage, and disease and insect pressure is then relayed to Penn State and constructed into a field crop newsletter that is put out every week. 

            Enjoy the rest of your month of June!

 

 

Penn State Extension Summer Internship

Its summertime!  And just like a song on the radio it’s played for a few short minutes and moves on.  My summer has been a whirl wind of experiences so far.  A mixtape you could say.  This summer for the second year I am working for Penn State Extension Endless Mountains in Bradford County.  I really enjoy the people I work with and work for.  It is what brought me back for another summer.  The variety of daily tasks, the interaction with the community, and linking it all to agriculture is fabulous.

Lately I have been working in the office getting ready for our county fair the last week in July.  My passion lies in the dairy industry and this year I have been given the brunt of the workload to make this year’s show successful.  Last year we had close to 100 animals for the 4-H show and well over 200 in our open show!  We are hoping this year is nothing different.  I have been constructing mailings requesting sponsors for our shows and getting the paperwork finalized for animal submission forms.  I must say I have become much familiarized with the copier, folding papers, and sealing envelopes.  FYI things go much faster when you use a glue stick instead of saliva.  As much as I like working in the office with the other interns the time I spend outside of the office is wonderful.  And I soak every second of it up.

I have been to numerous schools helping to teach an array of topics.  I have worked with autistic children teaching them the importance of earthworms in the soil.  Bring a classroom full of boys a bucket of dirt filled with earthworms and you have a morning full of things to talk about.  I have also been to numerous field days.  I have taught what the word horticulture means played a game identifying common vegetable crops, and why gardening is beneficial.  These field days are so much fun.  Witnessing the students’ eyes light up when you give them things to touch and smell.  It breaks up the monotony they have had all winter long.  The questions you sometimes get are so off the wall, but make what you are doing so worth it.  At the same time they sometimes surprise you just how much they do know!  Along with the school based lessons I have gotten to travel the county working with farmers.  Since I have been at Penn State agronomy has really interested me. 

One day I traveled with the county agronomist to recalibrate a sprayer a farmer had recently purchased.  He like many in the county was in his early to mid-sixties milking cows and doing most of the work himself.  With his bad knees he wanted to get the most out of his sprayer without having to get out and refill it.  We came in to help with the math and calibrating the smaller nozzles he had purchased.  Its moments like that, that make extension what it was founded on and feel good inside helping someone out who wasn’t too proud to ask for help.  I am also in charge of four or five soybean fields around the county that I will be scouting over the summer and relaying that information back to the agronomist which he will then construct into a newsletter to the Pennsylvania Soybean Association.  Just yesterday I set corn earworm traps in sweet corn patches that I will be checking weekly to see if the owners should spray.  These are just some of the big projects this summer I have while working at the extension office. 

No two days are the same and that is how I like it.  Hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I do living it.