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!

#AEE412 Weekly Investment: Evaluating Learning

Just as there are a variety teaching methods, there are also various means of assessment.

It is important to remember that multiple-choice exams aren’t always the best way to assess students’ learning (although I do think there is a place for multiple choice exams, just like there is a place for lectures). I found it very helpful to read about types of rubrics and how to create rubrics based on what the unit goals/lesson objectives are. Rubrics are a type of performance-based assessment, and within the realm of rubrics there are task-specific and generic rubrics. Each type of rubric can be either analytic (focuses on the end product) or holistic (focuses more on process and follows a “yes or no” format). I like rubrics because they provide a guide for students while they are completing the assessment. In addition, by having students complete a self-evaluation they will hopefully take more ownership in their learning. This also allows more immediate feedback to take place, which in turn increases motivation on the road to mastery. Self-evaluation also promotes reflection, which will help students grow and learn better.

I really appreciated reading the article on assessments in laboratory settings. The Vee Map was a new concept to me and I definitely think I will use it in the future. I believe it is important for students to learn how to write scientific reports, but it isn’t necessary for a full-length report to be written after every experiment. Using the Vee Map provides students a way to incorporate the different components of a lab report but on one page. Students write the focus question, vocab, a concept map of various terms/ideas, the procedures of the lab, data and analysis, and a conclusion/claim statement. 

Here is a model of the Vee Map Structure (Roth & Verechaka, 1993):

Grading Exceptional and English Language Learners can be FAIR & ACCURATE.

How do we as teachers ensure our grading system is both fair and accurate, especially for students with disabilities and English Language Learners? The article from the Educational Leadership magazine definitely helped me process what is needed for high-quality reporting. “High quality reporting systems distinguish three types of learning criteria related to standards (Jung & Guskey, 2010).

1. Product Criteria – what students know and are able to do at a particular point in time.

2. Process Criteria – relate to student’ behaviors in reaching their current level of achievement and proficiency.

3. Progress Criteria – considers how much students improve or gain from their learning experiences.

This made me think back to my educational psychology class a couple semesters ago. My professor discussed the importance of providing feedback on how the students have improved. He said that one way to do this was to give them two grades, with one being their improvement grade. When students see that their efforts are making a difference, they will be more motivated to continue putting in time and effort. The article also stressed the importance of incorporating appropriate accommodations/adaptations, and then grading based on that – not the original objective/goal.


I’d love to learn more about effective evaluation of learning. How do you evaluate your students? What are your best tips? Thanks for reading; I’d love to hear your thoughts!

References:

Cornell University Center for Teaching Excellence. (2015). Assessing student learning. Retrieved from http://www.cte.cornell.edu/teaching-ideas/assessing-student-learning/index.html

Jung, L.A. & Guskey, T.R. (2010). Grading exceptional learners. Educational Leadership, 67(5). Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/feb10/vol67/num05/Grading-Exceptional-Learners.aspx

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.

Roth, W.-M., & Verechaka, G. (1993, January). Plotting a course with vee maps: Direct your students on the road to inquiry science. Science & Children, 30(4), 24-27.

Stoughton, A.L. & Myers, B.E. (2008) Creating and working with rubrics.

Warner, W.J. & Myers, B.E. (2010). Evaluating learning in laboratory settings.