AEE 412 Weekly Investment #4: Teaching to a group!

This week's reading have lead us to dive deeper into thinking about how to approach an informational lesson which lines up perfectly as this week we are tasked with writing our first informative lesson.  As I sat and brainstormed this weekend about what information I would like to cover in this lesson, I noticed that a lot of the lesson was going to consist of me just presenting the information to the students.  I don't want for me to just be dumping information onto the students so thankfully the readings were able to help me think a little deeper and gave me some great ideas.  As I read, I also couldn't help but think back over my education over the years and realized that most of my teachers used some of these techniques at some point or another.  When students hear the word group work, we usually think of it as a punishment but now I see that the teachers put us into these groups only to help us learn the content much better.  If they would have just stood in the front of the room and talked about it instead of making us think about the information and work together to understand it, I would have just tuned them and not have learned anything.  I hope that I am able to help my students absorb content more efficiently by incorporating collaborative learning into my classroom by utilizing many of the ideas listed within our readings this week.

Our other reading this week talked about effective objectives for students and the importance of having objectives for every lesson.  I need to make sure that I as the teacher am make clear, concise objectives that my students are able to achieve.  Objectives need to be measurable and contain an action verb in the actual objective.  Student learning, written objectives and teaching all need to be on the same level of achievement as well.  Don't  write a high level objective and teach at a low level.  This would be like trying to reach for a book on the top shelf with out having access to a ladder.  Students will become frustrated and just give up.  No teacher wants their student to just give up on anything.  The video I found about objectives helped lay out the same idea just in a little different fashion.  Everyone has heard of SMART goals, well this laid out objectives in the same way.  Teachers need to have SMART objectives; Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relative, and Targeted.  If I am ever struggling with writing objectives, I know that I can always look back on these resources.

Resources:
Groseta, K.J. & Myers, B.E. (2006). Using cooperative learning in formal and nonformal education. Retrieved from https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/WC/WC06200.pdf

Newcomb, L.H., McCracken, J.D., Warmbrod, J.R., & Whittington, M.S. (1993). Methods of teaching agriculture. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Whittington, M.S. (2005). Writing objectives in secondary agriculture courses that challenge students to think. Agriculture Education Magazine. Retrieved from  http://www.naae.org/profdevelopment/magazine/archive_issues/Volume77/v77i5.pdf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpxgLKqhyNo


backgrounds in agriculture or interns in crop consulting