2016 Student Teaching Reflections

Over the last 4 months, I have been student teaching at West Perry High School along side of Mrs. Ayla Miller, and Mr. John Hines. Throughout my time with them I have learned so many new skills and content that I never imagined I would know this much about. I have had difficult parts of the semester, extremely busy times, but most of all, days where I couldn't imagine doing anything else with my life. 

Mr. Hines, Mrs. Miller, I (right to left) 

This semester, I taught a total of 7 classes, Small Animal Science, 2 Agri-science and Technology classes, Large Animal Science, FFA and Leadership, Wildlife Fisheries and Forestry, and Small Gas Engines. Each class taught me somethings completely different, each had its own purpose. 

Small Animal Science was a class that I picked up from the very beginning and took right up until the end of the semester. This class was one that pushed me to really develop my skills in project based learning and teaching content that was very new to me. Because of this class, I believe I will be comfortable preparing for and actually teaching material that I do not know nearly as well. I spent several hours preparing and developing lesson plans for this class. The biggest project in this class was an ongoing one. We bred, and raised rabbits. Each day 2 or 3 students had to take care of the rabbits, feeding, watering, and changing the pans. This gave me an introduction into having animal in the classroom. 

The other class that I really got the most out of was my 6th period Agri-science and Technology class. This class was one that was nothing but 9th grade students, right after lunch. This class was not one that pushed my content knowledge all that much, but one that tested my classroom management skills the most. Even though they pushed me harder than another other class, I would not have traded that class for anything. The amount of growth that I experienced from them was beyond that of any of my other classes. 

The final topic I wanted to discuss was the extra experience I have gotten this semester through my Community Based Unit and the FFA. I spent several hours working with the wildlife class, planning and finally implementing this community based unit on mammals and I gained a lot of experience in the process. I had to organize the workshop, work with the students to prepare a presentation for the workshop, work with Mr. Hines to select and purchase the required materials, contact the Elk center to speak to the class about mammals, develop an advertisement for the workshop, teach the students about mammals, and finally facilitate the workshop with my students. each step of the way I was constantly learning and developing my skills. 

Overall, this semester was one of the best ones I have had at college. I would not trade my time at West Perry for anything else. The skills, content knowledge, and connections I have developed with the community and my students, had made an impact on my life that I could have never imagined. I can honestly say I am finally ready and confident that I can be a full fledged teacher now. 

South Central PAAE Meeting

So last week, we had the South Central regional meeting of the Pennsylvania Association of Agricultural Educators. We traveled to Cumberland Valley High School to attend this meeting.
Several Ag Teachers were attending the meeting.

At the meeting, we discussed several different topics, the most significant to me included the NOCTI pilot test. PA currently has around 120 students who have taken the pilot test. In order for the test to be officially adopted by NOCTI, there needs to be a minimum of 200 students take the test.

The NOCTI test is the final assessment for an Agriculture program designed to test students who have completed the program on all of the information they have learned over the past several years. The test that is currently being used is not one representative of what is being taught in Pennsylvania. Because it is a national test, the students are not necessarily getting accurate results which is why a NOCTI specifically for Pennsylvania Agriculture has been created.

Overall this meeting was an informative one. Once I graduate, I plan on continuing attending the PAAE meetings. Having the chance to meet and discuss these issues and topics we are currently dealing with in agriculture is going to be an important part of my own professional development. The time is fast approaching that I will be a full fledged teacher and I will need to rely on this organization to help me grow.

Professional Development

During this semester, I have gone to several professional development events, One specifically that I attended was the Hoss's dinner with Ag teachers in the South Central Region. When we went to this supper, one requirement was that everyone had to bring at least 1 resource to share with the group.

I decided to bring along the digital versions of the Envirothon practice tests that my students created in class. I told a little bit about the resource when it was my turn to share out, and passed around a sign up sheet for anyone interested to getting the tests to use. There were several teachers who signed up.

Some of the other resources that were being shared included a template for "baseball cards" to help the students study from. a book for aquaculture and how to start and manage a system, and several others. Mr. Fredrick also gave us a lot of resources if we wanted them, The one that I wanted the most was a book on wildlife in Pennsylvania. Once I started looking through this book I realized just how much information was packed into it. I started using it to find extra information to teach my students in the wildlife class.

Overall, cooperation among Ag teachers is an extremely important thing. We cannot all be masters of every single topic we teach, which is why we need harness the knowledge and resources from our peers. If we can continue to support each other like this, we will continue to thrive.

Banquet

This week we had the annual FFA banquet here at West Perry High School. After months of planning and a week of preparation, the banquet was set to go off at 6:30. This was the first year the West Perry had a banquet on a Friday, usually they are on Thursday.

The planning process for banquet took much longer than I ever expected. After going through the script dozens of times, Mrs. Miller and the students were finally happy and had everything worked out down to the last detail. Another area that took longer was the slideshow, between getting it prepared, checking it over, and re-checking it. it was finally finished.

Friday night was the big night, everything went off without any issues (other than the ice cream being too frozen to scoop). we started in the cafeteria for supper, then everyone moved to the auditorium for the actual ceremonies. at one point, my students surprised me by calling me up on stage to receive the Honorary Chapter Degree, I couldn't have been happier.

This entire process that we have gone through to make banquet the best that it could have possibly been has taught me so much. Planning is going to be key when it comes to events like this one. If the students and teachers had not been working since February, there is no way that the banquet could have turned out as well as it did.

One thing about this banquet does make me a little bit sad though, this will be my last major event that I plan and participate in with West Perry's Agriculture department. next Friday is my last day with them. these last four months have flown by and I have learned so much from them.

Mock Interview

A few weeks ago, I had a Mock interview with the principle here at West Perry High School. For this interview, Mrs. Miller and Mr. Rahn were asking questions.

The interview did not start off as I had expected it to. I walked in expecting to shake hands and introduce myself as I would at a normal interview, this did not happen because of the time constraints.

In order to best prepare me for a real interview, Mr. Rahn had around 20 questions ready to go ranging for my pedagogical knowledge and knowledge of instructional methods and assessments, to questions about my own personal reasons for teaching agriculture. The interview was very fast paced.

At the end of the interview he gave me the opportunity to ask him questions which I did. I received answers that I was not expecting. I asked what, if anything, he would like to see the agriculture department doing to improve the program. His answer to me was basically "nothing" he added that 10 years ago there would have been a good long list of additions he would have liked to see, but he said that now that the program is at the national level he has happy with the program and what it has been doing.

After the interview I was given a lot of advice by Mr. Rahn and what I need to do to improve me interviewing skills and my answers. Some of the advice he gave included expanding on my answers more, a regular interview will last just as long with half as many questions. He also told me not to be afraid of talking about myself and what exactly I've done, he wanted me to give specific examples of my achievements.

Overall this experience was a great one that has really helped me prepare myself for interviews, and find a confidence in my answers and my experience that I never had before.

Bat presentation and Boxes

This Spring, one assignment we had for student teaching was to conduct a community based unit of instruction. After thinking carefully about what I wanted to do, and discussing it with my cooperating teachers, I decided to use my mammals unit for this assignment. One major issue that Pennsylvania has been facing is white nose syndrome, do I decided to work bats into my community based unit.

5 participants showing off their bat boxes

This unit ended up having 5 steps to being successful. The first step was teaching the students bats and other mammal identification through in class instruction. Second, I brought a guest speaker from the elk center in to the class to talk to the students about deer and elk biology. Third I had the students researching and preparing a presentation about several different topics relating to bats and habitat management. Fourth I took 5 student volunteer to assist me in conducting a bat and habitat improvement workshop for the community. and finally, in the workshop we build several bat boxes, for the most part the participants got to take home their own bat box, but the remaining boxes are going to be donated to different community members and hung up by the stream below the school. 

Mr. Clark using a screw to score the inside baffles 

Overall, each step ended up being extremely important in order to move on with the plan, and the students took a lot of information from this unit (One student even used the bat information in an extemporaneous speech!).
Overall the workshop went extremely well and the unit couldn't have gone better. 

Bull Reproduction Dissection

This week for my Large Animal Science class, in order to review the parts of a bull reproductive system, we dissected a bull reproductive system.

After several weeks, dozens of phone calls to local butchers, a few rounds of phone tag, and a request to a student later, I finally got my hands on an intact bull reproductive system. The purpose of the demonstration was to show the students what a real reproductive system looks like, as well as review the different parts and their functions.

To start, I had the system spread out on the table to kept it covered so the students had no idea what we were doing for class. The bellwork of the day was: What are "Rocky Mountain Oysters"? The majority of the class had no idea, but to try and get the students thinking a little bit, I asked who knew and said not to shout out the answer. Once I found out who knew, I had the students who didn't know take a few guesses. I got answers like "Oysters that live in the mountains" and others that were similar. Finally, after several students couldn't stop themselves from laughing, I let them answer the question: Friend bull testicles".

Once I got that answer I picked up my enthusiasm and got excited and asked the students, " Why on earth would I be asking you about food in a reproduction unit!" which some of the students knew right away, that we were going to be dissecting them.

The class went over extremely well, with the dissection (after some serious confusion) we finally identified all of the parts we could find, and began to dissect the testicle.

The students really enjoyed this demonstration overall. I ended the class by having the students trace the path of the sperm cells starting from where they are produced in the testicles to the complete end of the system.


This demonstration showed me a few things, first no matter what happens, if there is something I feel is important for the students to know and get experience with, I need to keep trying. In this case it was getting my hands on a bull reproductive system. the second thing it has taught me is just because I taught my students the theory behind bull reproduction, does NOT mean that they will be able to identify the real thing when the time comes. It took  a lot of prodding and guiding to help the students understand what exactly they were looking at.

Lab Rotations

This week in Large Animal Science, we conducted a lab to look at bull semen through a microscope. The purpose of this lab was to get the students experience working in a lab setting, while at the same time reviewing concepts from the previous lessons. The lab started off extremely well, and then went down hill from there. 

The students were split into 6 groups where they would work their way around a rotation, taking around 5 minutes at each station to work on the task given to them, 3 stations of review, 2 stations of preparing and looking at the semen, and 1 station of clean up. The rotation started off strong, until the students started struggling finding the sperm cells through the lens. 

It began to take longer and longer to get the groups through that one station and by the end of class, I still had 1 group who did not get the opportunity to even attempt it. Time was an issue. 

This lab showed me something extremely important with teaching, no matter how much time you spend preparing something to make sure it is ready to go, there is always going to be the chance for something to go wrong. In my situation it was my own overestimation of the students abilities with microscopes and the time they would spend trying to get it focused. 

The next time I teach this, I plan to change a few different things. First, I plan to take at least one class to have the students practicing with the microscopes and making sure they understand all of the parts of one. Second I would have one slide pre-prepared for the students that I know will have what I want them to see in it. and finally, I would have more microscopes that have the ability to see what I want them to, so that the students are not limited by the time factor. 

Although I still believe this lab was good, there is still improvements to be made on it. Just like most other lessons, it is not perfect. 

Area CDE's

This week, my blog is going to be focused on my day Tuesday. We went to CDP area Career Development Events. At the events we had 3 students in Extemporaneous speaking, 2 in Conservation, 1 in Junior Prepared, 1 in Senior Prepared, 1 parliamentary Procedure team, and 3 creed speakers.

At the end of the event, we ended up with several students being able to move on to the next level (Regional's), including the parliamentary procedure team.

My experience with this event ended up being as a facilitator for the extemporaneous event. Mrs. Miller, Mr. Hines, and myself were getting the students organized and working on their speeches. A few times at the beginning the flow was a little bit messed up but after the 3rd or 4th speaker we got the hang of the timing and had a speaker ready to go about every 15 minutes.

What I managed to take from this entire experience was this: Things won't go as planned, whether it be in the classroom, at an FFA event, or through an SAE. Something is probably not going to work out exactly as its planning and it will require me, as the teacher, to be very flexible and willing to change my plan.

This has happened several times over my time student teaching so far, and I believe that I have succeeded at adapting and being flexible. I just need to make sure going forward that I do not stop being flexible and expecting everything to go perfectly for me.

I am still learning just as much, as the students are at this point!

School Visit- Big Spring

Today I had the opportunity to visit Big Spring High school, where one of my fellow student teachers (Katie Andrews) is student teaching. Although some people may consider West Perry and Big Spring to be very similar programs, I would definitely disagree.

Although both schools have their similarities, there are some pretty major differences. Big spring is a one-to-one school, with a very high-tech greenhouse/head house and had block scheduling. West Perry on the other hand has chrome books in a cart for the students to use, a greenhouse without a head house, and we have roughly 45 minute periods. Although the differences may seem minor, when you walk into each school they start to seem pretty major.

I would not say one program is better than the other, both have their strong points and their weak points. Big spring heavily uses technology in the classroom, which can be nice at time, but from my experience technology does not always cooperate.

West Perry on the other hand uses a lot less technology in the classroom, but it is there when we need it. Some things are not as accessible to our students also such as apps like Kahoot which works great for review.

This visit has helped me decide what type of classroom and school I want to be at when I graduate and become a teacher. I decided I want to be at a school more like West Perry in terms of technology, I do not like relying on technology as much as other people do. I really have always been like that.

I would rather see students with a piece of paper in front of them supporting the forestry and logging business.

One thing I will say that I loved at Big Spring was the greenhouse and head house. I would love to have a big greenhouse and the ability to get my students in there working every spring. Although West Perry does have one, I have not gotten much experience in there yet (we haven't started planting).

Either way, both schools have the strength and areas of improvement but it works for them. I would like to be able to incorporate all these different ideas into my future program to come up with something that works just as well for me.

SAE visit 2- Research at Breakfast

My second SAE visit was completed at the end of last week. I went to a breakfast that was being help by Representative Mark Keller. At the breakfast, two of my students were given permission to pass out a survey to help them with their SAE project.

Their project is being done to determine whether living in a rural setting impacts a persons allergies and allergic reactions.

While we were at the breakfast, the two students were telling me about their project and how they have been collecting data. When they had their project at farm show, the advice that was given to them was to increase the scope of their data. When they heard about the breakfast they knew this was their chance. They printed off 200 copies of their survey and asked Representative Keller of they could pass it out to everyone there. He happily obliged.

This breakfast was the perfect chance for me to learn about their SAE and what they had been doing with it. I had never seen a research project like this one before.

By doing this visit, I had the opportunity to see what a research project can really be made of. The students were determined to expand their research to include a wider variety of people and make their data more reliable.

In my program, I would love to see some of my students have a research SAE. No matter how simple the idea may seem, they have potential to make the project go above and beyond all expectations. Since I did this visit, I have been thinking of ideas for students to have as research projects and have come up with several topics that I think would go hand-in-hand with the learning that will take place in my classroom.

Rabbit Production SAE visit

Last week I had the opportunity to visit one of my students at their home for my first SAE visit of the semester. This particular students has a very strong entrepreneurship SAE in rabbit production.

When we got to her house, we stood outside the front door for 10 minutes knocking and waiting, thinking she forgot we were coming to visit.

When she came around the side of the house, she was laughing at us saying they were in the barn and that they don't use the front door anyway (would have been great to know!). So we walked down to her barn.

When we walked in, we saw around 80 rabbits in cages that she was raising. She took us straight back between the cages and showed us her project rabbits. Her project is one meat pen for the fair.

After taking some pictures and getting the tour of her facilities, she showed up her champagne's (rabbit breed) and talked to us about how their colors change from solid black (as kits) to a silver-grey (as adults) she told us all about why this happens and the different color patterns they can develop as they are changing colors.

Finally we got around to talking about the AET program and how she can upload pictures directly from her phone to her records.

The more visits I go on, the more I have been getting ideas to help my students with their SAE projects, and the AET system. This will be a major part of whatever program I end up in after I graduate. I want my students to be able to tell me about their project and everything they are learning about, and teach me a few things along the way. SAE is an amazing part of an agriculture program.

Clarity for projects

This Blog post is going to be focused on an assignment that I gave last week to the students in my Small Animal Science class.

We started a unit on dog care and breeds last week. To start this unit, I gave the students an assignment, they were each given 3 names of dogs and what they had to do was find several pieces of information about each breed and one breed of their choice (after completing the breed selector found here)

The students were then to identify their breeds on a power-point, describe each breed, and select one breed to watch the dogs 101 video on.

Sounds simple, right?

Everything was going well, the students had all the information they needed, I was going to give them a demonstration to show them what I expected for each breed, and then... I over did it.

I was only expecting the students to give me 4 pieces of information which they had sections for on a notes sheet I gave them. I got so excited about this project that while I was giving my presentation I just kept talking and talking and talking, giving the students ALL of the information I asked them to find.

This ended up confusing them a lot more than I expected. As soon as I finished they started asking me questions about what I was actually expecting from them and how long their presentations should end up being. Because I did not think I was going to confuse them this much there was a few things that I did not have a good answer to at that moment. So they were left confused and I knew it.

That night, after talking to Mrs. Miller, I went home and reworked my rubric, and talked myself through everything they were asking me about. I walked into class the next day and took the first 10 minutes of class to re-explain my expectations and clear up any confusion that there may have been.

Since this time, my students have been giving their presentations, two students per day, and doing great at it.

This "flop" that I had has shown me just how important it is to be extremely clear on my expectations, and also to make sure I know exactly what I want before I expect my students to know what they need to do.

From now on, I will be looking at every project I have and every set of instructions I give to make sure they are as clear as possible. I don't want to be the cause of my students frustration and confusion again.

SLLC and Proficiency Applications

Last weekend (I know its late it has been a crazy week) I went to the State Legislative Leadership Conference with Mr. Hines and five of my students. This conference is meant to teach the students about the legislative process and introduce them to senators and representatives from the state.

The students were debating and editing several bills that are currently being pushed through congress right now. This conference also gives the students the opportunity to meet with the leadership and members from FFA chapters all across the state. This is also the time when proficiency applications are due.

While my students were busy doing this, I was in a room with several teachers judging and grading proficiency applications. This was a whole new experience to me. Up until this point, my only experience with proficiency applications was the three from West Perry which I had helped prepare for this day. The table I was sitting at ended up being the one selected to judge the horse entrepreneurship applications, and later the sheep production applications.

By getting these two groups, I had the opportunity to compare around 12 applications. (we were really busy). I got to see the difference between students projects and how much time they spent on the Agriculture Experience Tracker. After looking at these, I realized just how big of an impact keeping good records on your SAE project can really cause. I saw applications where there was minimal work, and applications where the students clearly put in hours of work (these were typically the winners).

At the end of the day this made me realize something. Student success depends on the effort they put into the work they have.

Most of these students did not HAVE to put in an application. They took time out of their own lives because they wanted to share their experiences and see just how well they were keeping records (the $250 prize helped too I am sure).

Some day I want to see my students putting applications in, and winning these proficiency awards, but I would never force this on them. It needs to be something that they can do on their own and take pride in.

Rats Are Interesting

This week, I finished up my rabbit production unit in Small Animal Science and decided I needed to find something that would only take a day or two as filler (since I am at SLLC right now). I decided that the best thing to teach the students on Friday was a lesson about rats.

As some of you know, recently I purchased two rats to keep as pets. After discussing it with Mrs. Miller a little bit, I decided that I was going to teach a single lesson on rats for my Small Animal Science class.

On Friday my chance came. I needed an extra lesson to fill in before we left for SLLC. I had all of my students circle around me in the center of the room and pulled the rat cage over for them to all see. I taught that lesson and my students were all pretty interested in the topic. I showed them the food for my rats, explained to them about Mycoplasma in rats, explained why you should never pick a rat up by its tail.

The students seemed to have generally enjoyed the lesson.

Rats are a pet that not many people want to think about often (I think its the tail) but because of this lesson, I think my students will be more open to the options they have when looking for pets.

This lesson showed me that when I have something that I am really passionate about, when I teach about it a little bit of my passion can spill over to my students even if its only getting them to laugh at a rat instead of being scared.

Knowing whats going on

This week for my blog I decided I am going to write about classroom management as a whole. The area that. We have all been most concerned about this semester.

One thing I have really been trying to focus on this semester up to this point is building my rapport with my students. I want them to know that I do care about them and I am friendly, But I am not their friend. For the most part this has gone very well. There have been a couple of situations overall that I had to take action beyond just saying something to the students.

One of these times was the other day. I have had students be a few seconds late to class on occasion and I just let it go for the most part and made a note of it. But this week I had students coming into class almost a full minute late with no legitimate excuse or a signed pass. So I did what I thought was best and gave them a detention (this was the 3rd or more time and that is what school rules also call for)

whether or not this actually ends up working to get them to start showing up on time, I do not know. But it is a step that needed to be taken.

I will be keeping a close eye on the students to see when they are late through the schools system.

If anyone has any advice or ideas as to how to handle these students better, please let me know!

Timing

This past week has been another great week on my path to becoming an agriculture teacher! But like every week there is always something that I need to work to improve.

This week, I have found an area where I really need to improve on to maximize the lessons I teach each day, my timing for ending a lesson.

This week there have been several points where my timing for the end of the class has not been even close to being correct. I have been trying to teach new material right up to the bell. I know this is a problem because I have not given my students the chance to review for the day and when I am working in the shop there is no time to clean up. This has been causing a little bit of stress for my students as well as me.

The students have to rush to get their materials and safety glasses put away then run to their next class, while I end up having to clean up.

This week my goal is going to be to take the last 5 minutes of class to review what we did for the day and the objective in each one of my classes. (I did much better towards the beginning of the semester, this issue is one that has just recently started to arise).

In order to do this though, I need to get into the habit of checking the time and deciding on a good place to stop each lesson. I have found this list of 40 ways to end a lesson to give me ideas to help end my daily lessons so that I am not just asking questions about each objective all of the time.

A good lesson does not just teach new material, It also ends with review to ensure the students are understanding the lesson.

Small Gas Engines

This week I there has so much going on and I have been learning all week. But one specific class I feel has progressed me the most. My small gasoline engines class.

To give a little bit of background, this class is a class of sophomore-senior boys and it takes place during the last period of the day. This class is focused primarily on teaching (you guessed it) small gas engine maintenance and repair. The first few weeks of this class have been focused on preparing the students to tear down their engines and rebuild them all while diagnosing and repairing anything that might be wrong with the engine.

This particular group of students is very talkative.  During my time I have been trying to come up with ways to reduce how much they talk in the class so that I can be sure they are grasping the material.

Then I started listening to what they are talking about.

During every class, regardless of what we are discussing, I started to really listen to what they are talking about. After doing this, I began to realize that they aren't talking about anything they feel like. They are specifically talking about engines and what I am trying to teach in class.

After I began to realize this, I would listen much more closely to what they are saying and occasionally I will bring it up to the class and have them explain it to the class.

My major take away from this week: Not all talking is a bad thing, a perfectly silent class could very well be a sign that the students don't understand what we are trying to teach them. When the students are talking about the subject, it is easier to find out what they understand and what might need to be revisited.

I am looking forward to listening more closely to some of my other classes and using this to decide what and how I teach.

Enthusiasm

Enthusiasm in the classroom is something I have never really been great at...

Typically whenever I teach lessons, I will wander around the room and not laugh or joke or anything just continue teaching until the bell. Last week I made my first noticeable improvement in my enthusiasm.

In my Small Gasoline Engines class, We had just finished going over the different tools we use and I was starting a lesson on the four strokes of an engine. It started off a little bit slow with the students not really wanting to answer my questions.

Then something clicked, I needed to do something differently. By the end of the lesson I was running around the room getting students up and out of their chairs extremely excited writing on the board. while I was explaining the movement of fuel and air in the combustion chamber.  At one point when I got a question answered by the entire class all at once, I threw my arms into the air and shouted "YES! GREAT!" and continued explaining why the valves on an engine had to be closed during the compression and combustion stroke.

As I said, Enthusiasm has never been my strongest teaching characteristic, but ever since then I have noticed myself acting more like this in other classes also (most notably my 1st period small animal science class, they are always still asleep.)

Every day that I teach I notice myself improving little by little.

Agricultural Science and Technology- Welding

This was my first week of teaching classes at West Perry High School. As nervous as I was a really shouldn't have been. I spent all this time, almost a year preparing for this moment and the next 4 months. The students walked into the classroom, and... everything went amazing.

My first week of teaching ended up being Way better than I every thought it would have been. I learned the names of most of my students in less than a week. I was well prepared for my lessons, and ended up having a much better delivery than I ever have in my "practice" lessons. Once those students sat down and understood that I was their teacher, all of my nervousness disappeared.

On the second day, I decided I wanted to try a lesson all of my own; not one that I observed from Mrs. Miller or that I took from any of the archives that I have access to. No, a lesson of my own. Specifically, a lesson to help the students understand welding electrodes.

I started the lesson off with a grand total of TWO PowerPoint slides on electrodes. From this point I  demonstrated to the students how to use an electrode and finally I broke the students up into groups of 4 and passed out 4 different types of electrodes to each group. The students had the opportunity to get their hands on the electrodes and see how they were made, get a feel for what they were supposed to do. Then, once they had a chance to observe the differences in the electrodes, the students were given a worksheet. They needed to look at the numbers on the electrodes and write down what these numbers meant (all this information was discussed in the 2 slides).

As the students were working, I walked around to each group seeing what they were writing and how they were doing. The students were enjoying being able to actually get to have their hands on the electrodes and practice what they had been learning. At one point. I heard several students saying that this was a great way to start the welding unit off.

Overall, I my first week for all 3 classes went very similar. The students seemed to really enjoy the activities I did with them and learned a lot in the process. I cannot wait to see how next week goes!

First Week

This week was a very slow week for me here at West Perry, I spent the majority of my time in the classroom observing or in the office getting everything ready for next week.

While I was in the classroom I was observing all of the classes that I will have over the next few weeks. I was also trying to learn names of more of the students that I will have. A few different times I got to help out with a lesson or a class, but most of the time I was just observing.

This week made everything real for me though. I got my own set of keys, and a "Faculty and Staff Frequent Buyers card" from the cafeteria. This made everything real to me finally.

Over the next few weeks I will be gaining my first experience as "Mr. Holt, Agriculture teacher" I will have the opportunity to develop and find my identity as a teacher.


It kind of makes me nervous, but also excited to see what the future has in store for me.

Science Classroom Visit

Today I had the opportunity to visit another science classroom at West Perry High school, before I begin my student teaching. The classroom I visited was a 4th period Biology class.

This visit was a little bit different than other visits I made. This classroom was chosen specifically because this teacher works with the students who need extra help to understand the material they are being taught. Although I did not get the opportunity to visit one of her classes where she has 100% IEP students, I could clearly see that the students she was working with needed extra help.

The objective of the lesson today was to focus on introducing the students to the process of mitosis. During the class, the students were very interested in learning to me it didn't seem like the teacher was even pushing the students to be interested,

The way this teacher was working with the students was that she started with a "Q&A" which is basically a longer version of a bell work to get the students to focus on learning. This worked very well with this particular group of students. At no point during this class was the teacher "giving" the students answers to the questions she asked though, she would push the students to find the right answers on their own.

There was a few comments I wrote down, this is the teachers first year back in a high school, since she moved to the middle school 10 years ago. One comment I specifically heard from a student was that she "hates school" but "loves this class" I thought that really showed the character of the teacher, her students enjoy her class so much that it is the reason they even come to school.

This teacher really relied on floating around the room to keep the students on track, but she really managed to keep their interest most of the time. she would keep going back to information that they already learned and connect it for the students so that they would keep interest. In order to make sure the students knew what she was expecting, she would ask questions throughout the presentation.

Overall I thought this was a really good class for me to visit, getting experience with students from a "low level" classroom was really the best use of my time here, as the majority of my experience is with the "high achieving" students in other science classes.

Mid-Winter Convention

Mid-Winter Convention:

Yesterday I had the opportunity to travel with West Perry High School to the Pennsylvania Mid-Winter convention at the Farm show complex. We brought 51 students along with us on the day trip. Several students were competing in the Ag Issues Career Development Event where they placed second out of 6 teams.

As this was only my third time at the farm show in my life, naturally I was still in awe of all the vendors in the complex. Let alone I was also trying to fill the role of a teacher for the first time.

This trip was my second real experience as a teacher at West Perry. The first being National Convention in Louisville. This was my first experience working to manage a large group of 50 students all at one time.

What did I take from this trip? Sometimes organized chaos is the best option. Once we got to the complex, the students had to be in groups of at least 3, but other than that they were free to roam the complex as they wanted. The only exception was that we all had to meet at the large arena to group back up and watch the convention.

Overall this was a great trip and a great way to get me used to have the responsibilities and disposition of an Ag teacher. The biggest challenge was getting the students back on the bus after the convention was over.