Week Two: I am officially teaching!

Hello everyone! Week two is officially complete! It's hard to believe how quickly time is passing. This week was a bit abnormal for a few reasons. First, students only had a two-day week. Students had Monday off for MLK day and Tuesday was an inservice day. Then we had a snow day on Wednesday. So Thursday was the first school day of the week and my first day teaching a class (Intro to AFNR). Also, students are in the middle of state testing, so that means block length is shortened from 90 minutes to about 50. Even though there were only two days of school this week, there was a lot to learn an experience! Here are my lessons learned/questions from week 2:

Community is required for a successful ag program.

This week I had the opportunity to attend Penn Manor's FFA Alumni meeting. I enjoyed the meeting because it gave me a chance to meet some more community members as well as see how invested the ag ed program and community members are in each other. There were alumni members from different generations as well as the current FFA President. I always think it's neat to see people serve something larger than themselves, not for personal gain, but because they believe in the purpose of whatever it is they're serving. The alumni take charge of various events throughout the year to help/benefit the Penn Manor ag ed program, and once again it just goes to show how important it is for an ag ed program to be a part of their community. I'm really looking forward to becoming even more involved with the Penn Manor community during my time student teaching.

Agricultural Experience Tracker.

On Thursday at the county FFA meeting, I helped the other ag teachers judge AET records at the county level. I have had a similar experience judging proficiency award applications at the national level in one of my Ag Ed classes. The experience is really valuable for me as a future ag teacher because it teaches you how to fill out AET records correctly so that you can teach your students correctly. Record keeping is an important skill to have and it provides opportunities for awards and such through FFA, but sometimes I sense that it's hard to motivate students to take their record keeping seriously. For all of you experiences Ag teachers out there: How do you promote intrinsic motivation in students to maintain a quality record book?

It's the little things.

Penn Manor just started spring semester this week, and since we have block scheduling that means students start all new classes. I'm teaching an Intro to AFNR class comprised of mostly freshman.  I've been working on learning the names of everyone in the classes I am/will be teaching, and I'm getting pretty close. I also have to keep reminding myself that not all of these students know each other because of how big the school is (whereas in my high school everyone knew everyone). The students in the Intro to AFNR class have been very reluctant to engage and answer questions the past two days - I think it's mostly due to it being the first week of the semester. Towards the end of class while everyone was putting their stuff away I started asking kids what they had planned for the weekend. It was really neat to see their faces light up as they began talking to me about things they had planned and things they were interested in. They also seemed more relaxed and comfortable. I'm looking forward to seeing what next week brings!

Week One at Penn Manor!

And just like that, week one of student teaching is coming to a close. This week was the last week of the fall semester for Penn Manor and after enjoying the upcoming long weekend, the students will start their spring semester classes and I will start teaching my first class. While much of this week has consisted of wrapping up fall semester classes and taking finals, I have learned a lot and really enjoyed my time at Penn Manor this week! Here are some key takeaways:

Assessments should be more than just regurgitating facts.

With all of the finals going on this week, I got to experience how the four ag teachers here at Penn Manor administer final exams. While all the exams were unique in their own way depending on the class, all of the exams required students to do more than just memorize everything they learned and spit it back up on paper. For example, in the Intro to AFNR class, students researched world hunger and then wrote a report on how what they learned in class could be used to reduce/stop world hunger. In the Construction class, one part of the exam required students to lay a corner of concrete blocks correctly. Students in Animal Science picked a species and wrote an entire management plan for that animal. I liked that all of the finals for the ag classes really allowed students to demonstrate their knowledge as well as required them to take what they learned and make connections/apply it in a situation. This goes back to how important it is to begin with the end in mind, and then make objectives based on how you will evaluate them.

Students taking their Engines I final exam.

Sharing office space and classrooms has its perks.

At Penn Manor, the four ag teachers share an office and then take turns using the classrooms depending on everyone's schedule. While this requires a little more organization and moving around throughout the day, I think it has some valuable benefits. First, sharing an office makes it much easier to communicate throughout the day. If everyone had their own classroom, you might not see each other as much. With the shared office set up, however, you can easily discuss events coming up, how you will encourage a student to try a new CDE, etc. For me as a student teacher, its nice because the mornings and afternoons are a great time to ask questions and discuss things with everyone.

Goals for Next Week:

1. Learn all of my student's names ASAP in the Intro to AFNR class that I'll be teaching! #RapportIsKey
2. Accomplish my planned objectives. Time management is something I've been working on all last semester, so hopefully getting to know the class and establishing a routine will help me continue to get better!
3. Keep asking questions and for feedback. I feel like I've been doing pretty good at this, but I need to keep telling my self to ask questions because sometimes I have a hard time admitting to myself that I need help with something. 
4. Be bold and try something new. I just want to make sure I'm making the most of this student teaching journey. It could be as simple as trying a new learning activity next week. The awesome (and sometimes scary) thing about student teaching is that I'm very much an amateur. So this is a good time to experiment and see what works and what doesn't! The whole point of this experience is to grow, and to grow I need push myself outside of my comfort zone.

I'm really looking forward to seeing what next week holds! Thanks for following me on my journey, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Student Teaching Day 1: My first trip to Farm Show and Mid-Winter Convention!

And just like that, my first day of student teaching is in the books! We spend the day at the Farm Show and the FFA Mid-Winter Convention. Not only was this my first day of student teaching, but today was also my first trip to Farm Show and Mid-Winter Convention! Since I wasn't in FFA in high school and I lived a couple hours away, I just never made the trip down to Farm Show... until now. This year's Farm Show theme was "Diversity in Agriculture" and I thought it was perfect theme for PA agriculture. The day was full of new experiences and lessons learned.

I got to watch three PM students show their pigs!

Student safety is number one.

I know this one seems obvious, but yesterday I got to experience this in the context of the possibility of having an early dismissal on the day you're supposed to be going on a field trip. It was neat to see the communication going on between administration and teachers while discussing their plan in case of an early dismissal. This also shows how important it is for teachers to have a working relationship with their administrators.

The FFA Jacket. 

Students getting ready to wear their FFA Jackets for the first time.

It was awesome to see all of the first year ag students put on their blue corduroy FFA jackets for the first time. You could see the anticipation in their eyes, their eagerness to put them on, and their sense of pride as they zipped up that jacket for the first time. Those jackets will mean something different to each student as they continue on their FFA journey, but I hope they all use their time in FFA to grow and achieve great things. Just as Victoria Herr said (I'm paraphrasing), FFA doesn't make students leaders. It equips them with the skills and knowledge they need to be a leader. It was also great to see all of the Keystone Degree recipients go up on stage to receive their degree. Each of those students put in a lot of time and effort to get their Keystone degree, and it was neat to see how much students can achieve in just a few years. I look forward to becoming an Agricultural Educator so that I can work hard to help grow students into leaders like the ones we saw yesterday.

Have conversations with students.

I really enjoyed seeing some of the students I already knew from our trip to National FFA Convention as well as getting to know other students! I don't think it matters so much what the conversation is about, but more importantly that you listen to what they have to say and build that relationship. Plus, learning things about people helps you remember their name (which is good, because I'm typically bad with names). I'm really looking forward to having those students in class, and having conversations with the rest of my students!

Overall, it was a great day and I can't wait to see what the rest of the week holds!

Congrats to Penn Manor's Keystone Degree recipients!