Student Teaching: Week 8!

Week 8 has come and gone, and week 9 is about to begin. This past week has been busy and full of learning - for both my students and myself. With each passing week I'm feeling more comfortable in the classroom, and I can tell my students are feeling more comfortable with me, too. Here are some highlights from this past week:

1. You never know until you try!

There is one student in my Intro to Ag Mech class that was absolutely terrified to try welding. He had been avoiding welding for some time, and then this week I was finally able to convince him to try for 15 -20 min. He was in a booth next to one of his friends who helped him set up. I had him practice a couple of weld puddles just to get the feel of welding. He was still unsure about his whole welding thing, but he did well, so I showed him how to run a bead. I left for a little to check on other students and when I came back he showed me his weld - it was awesome! Like better than most people's first beads. I was so excited about it and he was smiling from ear to ear, so I'm pretty sure he has conquered his fear of welding (hopefully - we'll see this week!). 

2. Connections, connections, connections.

Soil suspensions!

This week we began our Soils unit in Intro to AFNR. We began by learning about components of soil and soil porosity. After arguing (all in good fun) that soil was not the same as dirt, I facilitated an interest approach that connected why we are learning about soil to Lancaster County. We discussed what factors enabled Lan Co to be the most productive non-irrigated county in the nation and then looked at Lan Co on Web Soil Survey. I really enjoyed helping students make those connections and understanding the WHY. 

3. Star Red Rose Interviews

This week I got to serve on an interview committee for Star Red Rose interviews at a county level competition. This is similar to proficiency interviews, so I got to talk with students from all over Lancaster County about their awesome SAE projects! I was impressed by the students' interview skills and enjoyed learning something from each student. This was a great experience for me as a future teacher because now I have a better idea about what judges look for during interviews and in AET applications.

I truly enjoy my weeks at Penn Manor, and I can't wait to see what the next 7 weeks have in store!

#AEE412 Interest Approach Lab Reflection

This week's lab was all about creating a desire within our students to want to learn about a particular lesson/topic, or in other words, the interest approach. Prior to this semester, I was confused about what an interest approach was, so I was really excited to try my hand at developing an effective one. This coming spring I will be teaching a unit on Application of Biotechnology, so I decided to create an interest approach for my first lesson of that unit titled "What is the Green Revolution?". After watching my lab, here is one gem and one opp that I took away:

GEM from my Interest Approach Lab:

The video I showed truly caused an emotional response from my "students".

Causing an emotional response was one of my primary methods of capturing my students' interest in this topic. According to Lancelot's Primary Principles of Interest, "A subject is interesting if it affects us, others around us, or humanity at large." The Green Revolution occurred because people were concerned about the rising population and widespread hunger and malnutrition occurring in the world. Currently, we are facing a similar situation so by showing students that connection, they would hopefully be more interested in learning what the Green Revolution is and how it helped save over 1 million people from starvation.

OPP from my Interest Approach Lab:

I did not manage my time as effectively as I wanted to.

I feel like I should have been able to accomplish my interest approach in my 10 minute lab. But I think I took too much time on the bell-work which caused me to try and cram in my interest approach towards the end. And that didn't work. Next time, I need to make sure I tell my students as they begin their bell-work to alert me when they are finished so I know when to move on (ex. put pencil down and look at me).

#AEE412 Weekly Investment 3

Objectives are CRUCIAL.

Objectives (along with assessments) are the guiding force of instruction. Newcomb et al. states, "in writing instructional objectives, teachers make definite decisions about the content of the problem area. The force themselves to establish parameters that in turn help define and limit the scope and content of the problem area. ... they provide a basis for evaluation" (pg. 91). We learned this week that your objectives and your unit assessments should influence each other. This makes sense because like I said in last week's blog post - begin with the end in mind and everything needs to connect. I found it interesting to learn about the three domains of learning that objectives can fall into.

1. Cognitive - objectives that deal with the acquisition of facts, knowledge, information, or concepts.
2. Psychomotor - objectives that deal with using the mind in combination with motor skills.
3. Affective - objectives that have to do with attitudes, values, aesthetics, and appreciation.

I had never heard of affective objectives before, and found it to be a very interesting concept. My methods book (Newcomb et al., 2004) stated that the most difficult area of objectives to include are affective. I believe this, but after reading some examples and learning what they are I would argue that they, too, are very important to include. I think one of the main purposes of education is to grow up leaders and people with good morals and values, so including affective objectives is one way to work on this. I can definitely see myself including some affective objectives into the Biotechnology & Food Science class that I get to teach in the spring!

Interest Approach - Say What?!

Before this fall, I was always confused about what an interest approach was and why they were important. Over the past couple of weeks I've begun to get a better sense about what interest approaches are all about. Newcomb et al. discusses a variety of ways to go about creating a desire in students to know more about a topic. I think that developing interest approaches based on students' SAE projects is a neat idea. If students can personally connect with the interest approach the WHY of the lesson will be so much clearer.

However, in a research article I found concerning interest approaches in Agricultural Education, the researchers found that the use of an interest approach at the beginning of a lesson had no effect on the students knowledge/learning or student attitudes. But, the data did show that student engagement increased with the use of an interest approach. They did state that more data needs to be collected to further analyze the results of the study. I would be interested to hear what other ag teachers think about interest approaches!

References:

Johnston, T. L., Roberts, T. G. (2011). The Effect of an Interest Approach on Knowledge, Attitudes, and Engagement of High School Agricultural Science Students. Journal of Agricultural Education, 52(1), 143-154. Retrieved from http://www.jae-online.org/attachments/article/1537/52.1.143.Johnston.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.