Week 13: Student Teaching

This week was short and fast and this week I was able to learn to vital lessons for an Ag Teacher.

So many hanging baskets!  The greenhouse is getting fuller by the day! 

Lesson 1:  You HAVE to make time for yourself and your family!  
This week started with having a day off from out spring break and with that spring break I was able to travel home and visit with my family.  It is very easy to get swept up in the hectic and chaotic schedule as an Ag teacher and if you let yourself be completely and utterly be consumed by your job, you can shut out family unintentionally.  I believe that I have done a good job of keeping good balance during my student teaching experience however, I realize how easy it is to get too busy. 

Speaking for myself, I know that I am so passionate about what I do and for helping these students to be the best version of themselves that it becomes extremely hard at time to say "No" however, we also need to make sure that we are the best version of ourselves as teachers.  Having time to be with family or to just go a do something for yourself, will help to keep that vital balance in our lives and to keep us on that path to become the best teacher we can be for our students. 

The students in Ag Leadership were able to teach their peers with the Teach Ag Essay Content!  

 Lesson 2:  Tying up the loose ends!  
This week I had three of my units all coming to a close at one time.  I though that this would make my life a lot easier since we were going to end what we are on and move on to the next thing.  Simple right, give a test or collect the projects/rubrics and grade them all; wrong!  This made it a lot harder for myself.  Not only did I have all of those projects and tests to grade then all at the same time but I also failed to realize that for shop classes, you need to plan for time to clean up and prepare for the next project. 
We had just finished our electricity wiring projects and it was time to put all of the supplies and materials away so we could move onto plumbing.  The students did a great job of keeping the shop clean as they worked on their projects however now it was time that we had to organize all of the supplies and tear our projects apart.  I failed to ever think that part of the unit through.  It wasn't the end of the world, we just took a day to clean all of our electrical materials up but I did take a day away from my fool-proof schedule. 
With every class, no matter if it is a shop class or not, you always need to give yourself a day at the end of a unit to tie up any loose ends from the unit.  This could be to clean up supplies like I talked about, it could be for extra time for student presentations (because they always seem to take more time than planned)  or this could be just to wrap up any more questions or ideas about the topic at hand and to transition into the new one.  I will always plan for a day to tie up loose ends, if you don't need it then you can easily move on but always give yourself some cushion time.  

Science Classroom Visit

On Friday, March 9th I was able to visit Mrs. Hepner who is one of the chemistry teachers at the high school.  During this lesson, students were learning about Lewis Dot Diagrams and Periodic Trends.  I had so much fun watching her teach and would like to talk about some of the rock star moments I noticed.

1. There's a joke for everything!- She is so energetic and fun in her classroom!  Everyday she has a joke of the day and students are to come to class with a clean, school appropriate joke to start the class off with.  This is an idea I am SO stealing.  It is just a really fun way to start the class and it allows for each student to show their personality by bringing a joke they find funny.  Not only is there a joke of the day, but she makes so many jokes through out class and it just gives the room this fun and laid back environment.  For example, they were talking about different elements on the period table that day and she said why don't we take a moment to look at the element gold and as she was writing the symbol for gold on the board, she's like Ah!, You stole my gold (gold's symbol is Au)  It was funny and a great way for students to remember gold.

2.  Teamwork makes the Dream work!- I know cheesy line but it is true!  In Mrs. Hepner's class, everyone must take their turn and have the opportunity to show what they know.  An easy was to do this, is have students volunteer (sometimes volun-told) to go to the board and answer practice/homework questions.  You also can simply have them pick the next element we are going to look at.  That way everyone is able to have their voice heard.

3. Posters are our friend! - I had never seen so many posters on the walls in my educational career but it was such a good thing!  She was able to reference these posters so many times during the lesson and they were ones that she has made herself with simple rules of chemistry and rules of her classroom.

4. Think smarter, not harder! - Chemistry is a subject that students can really struggle with and Mrs. Hepner helps students not only understand the content but several times within the short time I was in her room, I saw many students have "Ah-ha" moments and then ask probing questions to dig deeper into the content.  She definitely does not just give away the answer to her students and promotes inquiry based learning and critical thinking skills.  If a student does not understand, she helps the student take a step back and look at the content in bite size chunks and then help them put it all together.  It's like portion control but NOT spoon feeding!!!

Mrs. Hepner does a great job of incorporating enthusiasm, clarity, variability and business-like-behavior into her lesson.  If I was a student, I would love to go to her class everyday and learn chemistry (and I hate chemistry).  She was able to keep my attention and delivered clear content all while have so much fun.  I think that a new teacher or student teacher would be lucky to have her as a mentor to look up to no matter what content area they teach! 

Week 12: Student Teaching

This week was a blur!  It was banquet week at Selinsgrove and every Ag teacher knows what comes with that.  Banquet is an evening where all of the students and members are showcased and we get to celebrate their achievements from the past year.  The week of the banquet can be hectic, fast passed and emotional.  Seniors are leaving, new members are growing into leaders, and the new officers step into their roles.

All of the Selinsgrove FFA members at the banquet!  

This banquet was more emotional for me than I thought it would be.  I have been through many, many banquets over the years but never have I been to a banquet as a student teacher.  I have become so connected and attached to this group of students in such a short amount of time that the banquet made me realize that I won't be around to see the underclassman grow and achieve so much more.  It jump started all the emotions that are going to be wrapped up in my last day and I am not ready to say goodbye to all of my students! 

2018-2019 Selinsgrove FFA Chapter Officer Team with PA FFA State President, Nathan Moyer and PA FFA State Vice President Thomas Gabel 

Thankfully we do still have a few weeks until I do have to leave them, however I know that it will be a hard day.  I think it will also be hard day for my students.  During the banquet, they surprised me by taking time to recognize me and talk about all of the fun things we have done this year.  I did not expect for them to do this since I am just their student teacher but I have learned that there is not such thing as "just a student teacher."  Each of them have shared some of their favorite memories from their time with me there and I have realized that I have made an impact on the students!

Look at all those chapter  proficiency winners!  

After the banquet, I talk to a few of the students and told them that they did not have to recognize me; their answer "Of course we did, the banquet is to recognize all the members of Selinsgrove and you are one of us!"  I truly have become one of them and feel as if I have been there for years.  I know that it will be a sad day here very soon but I know that I am leaving the students at Selinsgrove with some new knowledge, new skills and most of all fun memories!

All of the Greenhand Degree recipients :) 

Sorry, thinking too much about the end when there is still so much to do before that day comes!  We have to wrap up the Ag Leadership projects, start learning some plumbing content and skills in building construction and the freshman are going to start welding this week!  We also have to boil our syrup, get the greenhouse filled and ready for the plant sale, and head the Regional Public speaking contest!   So much to do, in such little time!

My very first Parli Pro Team!  Will never forget this group of great kids!  

Week 11: Student Teaching

This week was packed FULL!  It flew by faster than I can even remember.  We had a judging contest, SLLC, a visit from fellow PSUAG18 student teacher, Young Farmer's Regional Banquet, and an event for National Ag Day.  So with no further ado, let's dive into this busy week.

We started the week off by taking a small group of students up to State College on Saturday for the Spring Judging Contest hosted by the Penn State Dairy Science Club.  This was a great opportunity to connect with three of my students and be able to connect with other Ag teachers.

I had to opportunity to go to the Regional Meeting for the Young Farmers Association

Thursday evening.  It was great to mingle with these fellow agriculture enthusiasts and

hear of how much they support their local farmers!  

Hit the ground running the next morning, Mr. Swineford and I loaded up the van and took 7 members to the State Legislative Leadership Conference.  I had such a great time at the conference!  I had such a great time with the students and I felt like I was there as their actual teacher.  I have been able connect with the students now for 11 weeks and we were able to joke and laugh together.  We had such a fun time during our community service helping to clean out a pond.  Seeing them have such a fun time while doing this and connecting with the other chapter who were there with us made me feel like a proud teacher!

Selinsgrove FFA members hard at working during our time of service 

during SLLC!  

The last day of the conference, I was able to meet Representative Keller at the Legislative breakfast.  It was refreshing to see his passion for what he does as well as his support of agriculture, education, and most importantly the combination of the two.  He took us on a tour of Pennsylvania's capitol and told the members about his job as a legislator.  Our students were very excited afterwards and couldn't stop talking about what they had learned at the conference and how they all could be legislators in the future.

Representative Keller with members from the Midd West and 

Selinsgrove FFA chapters during the Legislative Breakfast at SLLC.  

After getting all of the kiddos back home from the conference, I had to prepare to get back in the classroom on Wednesday.  Little did I know that my day back at school was going to be a crazy and hectic day.  We had a two hour delay that morning, so we headed to school with shortened schedule but I became a lot shorter.  We turned around and go sent home early so students were rushed through lunch and they were headed back home by 1:30.  So I wasn't able to really teach much that day which means that I really only taught on Thursday this week.

Preparing for our day that we spent with the Kindergarteners!  

 Thursday was a special day as well.  Mrs. Fry was out writing curriculum for the day but I had a substitute with me as well as Miss. Becker, the student teacher at Manheim Central High School.  Part of our experience is that we get to go visit one of our cohort members and what how they teach, their classroom environment and get to check out their programs.  Miss. Becker chose to visit us at Selinsgrove.  She was able to watch the Building Construction students finalize their wiring projects, the Ag Foundations classes complete a lab about fertilizers and nitrogen content.  The Parli Pro team was even able to practice for Miss. Becker and get some feedback on their performance.  I hope that she really enjoyed her day with us at Selinsgrove because we enjoyed having her!!

Ag Foundations students working on their lab to determine the

amount of Nitrogen in potting soil.  

Friday I was with the rest of my cohort in a professional development day where we were able to digitally connect via Zoom.  We had a meeting with the Penn State Teach Ag Team and each of us were able to talk through one of the lessons we have done so far that didn't quite work out the way we thought it would.  I actually had a hard time finding a lesson to pick as usually Mrs. Fry or Mr. Swineford talk through each of my lessons with me about what went good and what could be fixed for next time.  I was able to find one that I wanted a little more feedback on and was really happy with the remarks that my peers gave me!

While I was not in class, my Ag Leadership class were busy promotion Ag Literacy as part of National Ag Day.  They had been preparing this week to head to the Kindergarten classes to read a book and help them to realize that both Plant and Animal Agriculture are responsible for producing all of the food we eat.  This was a part of the Farm Bureau's event for National Ag Day and Ag Literacy.  They supplied each of the classrooms with the book Tyler Makes Pancakes and our members went to read the book and play a game of bingo with the students to help them learn about how all of the ingredients for pancakes come from Agriculture; just like all the food we eat!

Learning all about how we get the ingredients for pancakes!  

Headed into this week, we have another busy, busy week.  I have a visit at the beginning of the week from my supervisor, Dr. Curry, and I am excited for him to come see me in action since I have grown over the past few weeks.  We also have many students who are going to put themselves in my shoes and all Ag Teachers across the nation as they are going to teach a class as part of our Self Concept unit.  To round out the end of our short week, we have our banquet! I am super excited to see all of the hard work of planning come together and see the expressions on the students' faces when they are recognized for their dedication and effort that they have put forth all year!

Check back next week to hear how all of this goes!!

Week 10: Student Teaching

Oh no!  We have hit week 10, that means that this is slowly coming to an end :(  I don't really want this to end.  I absolutely love my school and my students and really wish I didn't have to leave them.  I am surprised how connected and attached to these students I have become in such a short amount of time.  Most of my students have started to realize that it will soon be time for me to say my goodbyes and they ask all the time if I actually have to go; when we still have 6 weeks together.  I try to not think about it because  I know we each have to move on from this experience and find our place where we fit in the puzzle of ag ed, so I am going to make sure that we have a ball together in the last few weeks of it!

One of the last meetings I will get to be a part of :( 

Now that the I had to be all sad and sappy, I need to talk about how this week went.  This week was filled with lots of hands on learning.  The students in building construction have advanced from their wiring boxes to wiring walls.  The students thought that wiring was pretty complicated when they had to complete the circuits on their boxes but now that we have made out way to the walls, they are telling me that it is a lot easier.  They have been flying through wiring all of the duplexes and lamps together and all they have to do now is to connect it to the breaker box and test! 

Working on our walls!! 

We also had a guest speaker come into the class this week to talk about masonry.  I was able to step back for a block and let him teach them whatever he wanted about the careers and what you do as a mason, to my surprise he actually brought mortar and block for the students to actually try laying block.  They instantly thought "Oh that easy" as they watched him smear some on a block but as they started to do it themselves, realized that it is not easy at all.  This was great because some of the students realized that this is not easy but also that it was kind of fun.  It was a nice break from their electricity projects and still had a great hands on application for them.

Micro lesson on masonry.  

The Ag Foundations classes have been digging deep into the plant science unit and this week we learned about germination, pollination and propagation.  We did a really fun activity to learn about pollination where student snacked on cheese balls through out the class the only rule was that they COULD NOT wipe off or lick their fingers.  Later in the lesson I had groups of kids be each kind of pollination: wind, water, animals, insects.  So the wind group could only remove the pollen (cheese ball dust) from their anthers (fingers) by blowing on their finger tips like wind blows pollen around.  The water group dangled their fingers in cups of water, the animal group quickly brushed their fingers across a paper towel like a bird quickly brushing by a flower, and finally the insect group were rubbing their fingers on a fluffy bath towel just like a bee covered in hair rubs against the anthers.  The kids loved this activity 1. Because they got to eat and 2. it really helped them to visualize and understand how each type of pollination works.

Going on location for class today; to the greenhouse! 

The freshman also finally got to get out of the classroom this week as we went to the greenhouse for our propagation lesson.  They each were able to get their hands in the soil and cut up different plants like potatoes, petunias and garlic.  All of the students really liked this but there were a few that this really sparked their interest in plants.  They found it so cool and amazing that you can get a plant from cutting the parent plant up and sticking it in soil.  Being in a new environment however meant that I had to think through exactly what I needed to tell the students before we transitioned to the greenhouse.  I had to make sure they knew what we were going to do, what safety precautions to follow, and that we are going to respect the equipment and plants out there.  I never realized how many directions and other details I needed to include in the lesson just because we were moving locations.

Propagation lesson was a success!! 

This upcoming week is going to be packed full with SLLC at the beginning of the week, a visit from Miss Becker and a day of PSU Ag Ed work at the end of the week.

This is a terrible picture, but I ended my week by attending the 

spring band concert where 8 of my students blew my socks off

with their talents!! 

Week 9: student teaching

Week 9 of student teaching has taught me a very big lesson; you always have to be on your toes!  You never really know what could happen in a day so as a teacher you should always be on your toes and prepared to roll with the punches of the day.  This could be many different thins from exciting news, equipment malfunctions and just everyday surprises.  This week was sure to deliver!  When I started into this week, I knew we would be doing fun things in class and lots of activities but I had no idea what the week all would hold for me. Monday was a day full of electrical wiring, flower dissections and mock meetings; pretty regular day.  

Surprise!  Not exactly what you want to walk into on a Tuesday morning; water everywhere! 

Well Tuesday was sure to hold something special for us.  When Mrs. Fry and I arrived to school Tuesday morning, she opened the classroom door to an enormous puddle of water on the floor.  We quickly realized that the fish tank in the back of the classroom, that was home to our growing finger length Brook trout, had pumped about 40 gallon of water onto the floor overnight!  Thankfully not all of the water pumped out of the tank so the fish were still swimming around in about 3-4 inches of water however now all of that water now needed to be cleaned off the floor.   So Mr. Swineford, Mrs. Fry, one of our dedicated custodians, one of our tech ed teachers and myself quickly got to work to clean it up before our first class came in. With two mops, two shop vacs, and two giant fans it didn't take us too long to get it cleaned up and dry but definitely was not something we had planned to start our morning off with.  

Such a good clean up crew! 

Thursday was an exciting day for many of the members of the Selinsgrove FFA.  It was the SUN Area public speaking contest.  Mrs. Fry had been working with many of the members on their prepared speeches and our creed speaker.  My task leading up to the contest was to teach and couch the Parliamentary Procedure team.  This was the very first parli pro team that I have couched and I was very anxious the day of the contest.  I knew that they had been working hard and had came a long way since our first practice but I still knew that this was their first contest and my first time couching; wasn't sure we were completely ready to be honest.  After their presentation, they told me how terrible they did and how they knew that they were not going to do well.  Finally at the end of the day we go the results of all of the contest and the results were great!  We have two Senior Prepared speakers, two Conservation speakers, one Extemporaneous speaker and a creed speaker all qualified to go to the Regional Level.  All we had left to hear was the Parli Pro results and out of three teams, the Selinsgrove team took FIRST place!! I was so excited and proud of my students!!!

My very first Parli Pro Team!! 

The moment you learn that you just place 1st in Parli Pro! 

All of the Selinsgrove FFA Public Speaking Contestants!  

There were also many times throughout the week when students were able to surprise themselves.  I had one student who at first thought he would never be able to figure out how to do all of the wiring projects for electricity and this week he was the first of his classmates to finish them all!  Not only did his light bulb light up when we tried his 3-way switch but he face did too!  I also had a student this week who has really dug deep into our plant science unit and everyday I get to see his face when he has his Ahh - ha moments.  I curious to see what surprises this week holds for us in the classroom!

The Ag Foundations classes learned about how 

plant cells and animal cells are different this week 

and built their own models of plant cells out of 

different shaped pasta!  

Week 8: Student Teaching

Plants, Parli Pro and Pacing; that is what surrounded this week of student teaching.  This past week flew by and I mean really flew.  Seems like just yesterday was Monday and I was introducing the freshman to plant science by going out to tap trees and now we are at the end of the week where they are able to tell me the parts of the flower and building models of them; it's crazy!

The 3 Ag foundations classes as I just say have moved on from animal science and now we are diving deep into plant science.  We are collecting sap from the sugar maples out front of the school and each day a pair of students are responsible for emptying the buckets.  Once we get around 55 gallons of sap we will be taking a day to boil our sap and turn it into syrup.  This of course leads to them asking me everyday, "Do we have enough now?"  I simply ask them "Now do you think that these two buckets are 55 gallons?"

Tap that tree!  Mrs. Fry helps to show what angle 

to drill the hole at for the tap.  

It's great to see them so excited about this project and the are so interested in plants.  They had a great Ah-ha moment the other day when we were learning about the xylem and phloem of a plant.  When the realized that the phloem carried the food of the plant which is sugar, I saw 13 faces light up and say "Oh so that's the sap we are collecting, it's coming from the phloem of the tree!"  I was so super proud that they were beginning to think deeper than Oh the phloem carries food and connecting it all together!  Next week we are going to go one step further and talk about photosynthesis and how the trees and plants get that sugar in the first place.

The freshman classes aren't the only ones who are hard at work learning about plants.  I have started teaching the horticulture class as well and we are in full greenhouse production mode this week.  We spent the week transplanting seedlings like tomatoes, impatients and  herbs into trays of 6 packs and by the end of the week we had 800 petunia plugs arrive that we needed to transplant into hanging baskets.  Each of the students were definitely getting lots of hands on learning having those hands covered in soil!

Poke hole, put in plug, fill in with soil, REPEAT!  Working hard to 

get all of the petunia plugs planted.  

From Plants to Parli Pro.  My week was also packed full of parliamentary procedure which is the rules that are set forth that should be followed during a meeting.  My Ag Leadership class is going to be wrapping up their unit on Parli Pro this upcoming week.  During class we have being learning the basics of what it is and how we use but we also get to have a lot of fun by having mock meetings which gives students the chance to show what they have learned and have some friendly debate. I also have been practicing everyday this week with our Parli Pro Team. 

This team will be competing at the area contest this week and we are trying to get in as many practices as possible!  This is a new team who are new to Parli Pro but have come a long way in the short amount of time that I have been coaching them.  Several of them have already told me that they will be happy with however they place, they are just happy that they know more about Parli Pro and how to use it.  "Now I know what I can do at a meeting and how to do it properly!" was what one of my students and team members told me on Friday. 

My new up and coming Parli Pro team just getting ready to practice. 

I am glad that this has sparked an interest for them.  Parli pro can be a very intimidating thing for many students.  There's a lot of rules to remembers and you have to know exactly how you can make a motion but once you learn the basics it is actually very fun!  While teaching them about it and helping the team to practice, I can't help but think back to my days on the Parli Pro team and how much fun it was for me.  I love being about to share stories about my days of competing at the National Convention in Parli Pro and the students really love hearing about it!  

Finally this week, I have went back to my old ways and not in a good way.  The past few weeks I finally felt like I was getting better at my pacing but this week was like I took 2 giant steps backwards.  The students still learned a lot and had a lot of fun but I just wish that I would have done a better job of my pacing this week.  Part of it was that we got into a really great discussion which is always a great reason to be off track but other times I just didn't push them enough so that we could move on. 

I have learned that, it can take them a very long time to write down just a few simple sentences and I am always waiting on them to finish writing.  I don't want to give them super simple notes where they don't have to do anything, I also don't want to move on and them not have the notes they need but I have to find a way to make this go quicker because we are spending too much times just waiting on people to finish writing.  I am open to any ideas of how to make this go smoother.

The building construction students are always

working hard to complete their projects.  

This week is going to be so exciting with having the Public speaking contest and seeing how the members do at it.  I also am eager to see how much sap we will collect on Monday after the weekend and to see our plants in the greenhouse to pop up through the soil and grow bigger.  My building construction class is getting better and better each day with their wiring projects and I can tell that we will soon be putting up the walls and moving to the more advanced wirings.