Where has the time gone?

This week it really hit me that my student teaching is just about over. This time has gone by way to quick and I can honestly say I am going to miss my cooperating school, the teachers, and of course my students.

As for this week I was only in the classroom two days due to praxis exams and CDE judging. The CDE judging day was a great experience for me because I got to help judge the small gas engines CDE with Jasmine and other teachers. I am thankful for this opportunity because this is one CDE I never participated in and had no clue what happened in the contest. It was a lot of fun and I learned even more.

As for next week we should make a good head way on the power tools project which they are liking 100% more than the hand tools. Go figure. I will be implementing my action research into my AgriEcology class that revolves around learning styles.  My intro to ag class will be diving into labs dealing with soils.

Bringing Creativity to the Classroom

Being able to bring creativity and life to a classroom is always a challenge. I am always thinking well if I do it this way will the students be like oh this is cool or this is boring. By bringing creativity to the classroom you are able to make the learning environment fun and intriguing.

In my AgriEcology class this week I taught the idea of estimating populations, factors that contribute to populations, and how they react to changes in the habitat. One way I taught this was through Tragedy of the Commons lesson where the students went fishing to understand the effects that humans and limits have on populations.

In Honors Ag Mechanics they worked on finishing their birdhouses. People have always made fun or talked by obsession with the home make over shows. However, my cooperating teacher saw the beginning of the week where they torched a counter top to add patterns and texture instead of staining. So what did we do? Showed the students this idea and about half the class was like this is cool and did it. With this technique each birdhouse is different in its own way and they look awesome.

The Week That Was

I talked in my first few blogs about flexibility and this week flexibility has been the name of the game. Our five day school week turned into three short days. This week was a lot of changing and adapting and cutting certain lessons short and deciding what is the most important to cover that day and what is not.

I am officially at a full course load as of this week and to be honest its tough. It not tough in the aspect of preparation but tough in the area of my fourth block is a struggle because they are a class that has no desire to be there. So no matter what activities you do or how you teach it they could care less if your teaching and doing things with them. I was told it is not you it is them, but it is still frustrating because you feel like your failing each and every day with them.

I have spent the past two snow days getting moodles done so I can officially say I have one left!!!! I have gotten a bunch of little things done and out of the way that I have been pushing off. However at the same time it upsetting because I was hoping for a long weekend at home next weekend but I will still make the best of few hours at home of course being spent with the goats.

Placement SAE visit

Being in the FFA my SAE project was always based around livestock breeding and finishing. Being a student teacher at Manheim Central I am being exposed to the different types of SAE projects. Over the summer I did a dairy beef project visit and visited with a student who was restoring an old combine.

For my first SAE visit this semester I went to visit Diana High, who has a placement SAE project. The visit occurred at her place of work which is the G & G agway in Manehim. In order to set up this visit we had to get her work schedule and make sure it was okay for us to come. Diana uses AET for her record keeping. There were no recommendations when it came to her work from her boss but we talked about her responsibilities at G & G and where she could pick up more responsibility. For this to happen though it will not start till the summer when Diana is working more days and longer shifts. Overall there was nothing but good things said about her and her work ethic.

This student is a hard worker and you can see that just from her attitude and what others have to say about her. She recently had an accident that resulted in a concussion. Her place of employment has worked with her through the whole thing and yet she has not slowed down. The only thing she has slowed down is her time in the classroom but has still stuck that out as much as possible.

The student who does not try to learn

This week I had my first I would say discipline problem/issue with a student. I am into the handtool project in the wood working unit and I was teaching bird house layouts and the basics to a blueprint. The first day did not go well because the way in which I taught the students just were not grasping the concept. So that night I figured up a new plan and retaught the lesson the next day. I sat down and drew a birdhouse from start to finish showing every step and explaining why I did what I did. After doing all of this, this student did not even try to listen. He was playing with the vice than touching all of my papers so when it came time to do his own he had no idea where to start. I spent the entire class period answering questions for him that he had previously asked before and just was not grasping any of it. When I would go over to him he would have someone else's ruler in his hand or something.

I personally was not showing any patience towards this student. I talked to Mrs. Anderson about it and what I ended up doing was getting this student at the end of the day out of his homeroom. I brought him down to the shop and we worked through his layout one on one. He started understanding the concept and he went much better than class did. The next day he still had a few questions but was able to do the work and go so much done compared to the previous day. He also did not mess with other students stuff like the previous day. From this I did learn to take a step back and breath and think before I act. Not that I said or did something wrong but if I had not I probably would have.

This week was also National FFA week. The officer team planned out a themed week:
Monday= Camo
Tuesday= Boot Scootin' Tuesday
Wednesday= Where's it at Wednesday
Thursday= Trivia Thursday
Friday= Flannel Friday

We also went o Hoss's night to eat dinner with a state officer and had an ice cream social Thursday after school for the faculty.

Week... I have lost count already!

Preparing for student teaching you think it will take forever but as of Friday I hit the one third of the way trough mark can you believe it? This week we spent a lot of time preparing for the blood drive and gearing up for National FFA Week.

I must say my intro to Ag class is pretty spectacular. They worked very hard getting everything ready for the blood drive which consisted of advertising, signing people up, being receptionists, setting up and tearing down, and arrive super early the morning of to cook breakfast for those donating. #proud

This week I was able to see the officer team come together and get everything done for FFA week. We bought pens for the teachers and made super cute tags, planning an ice cream social for the teachers, themed days for the students, hoss's night with state officers, and more.

As for teaching this week I had some up's and down's. I tried a new idea for a lesson and I had to change a few things up to make it relate to the class I was teaching but still had some confusion on the faces of the students. I used making a pb&j lab to teach calculating a bill of materials. One thing I learned from this  lesson was dealing with food allergies. We checked if my class had any food allergies and there were none but we never thought about the class that comes in next and the roomed smelled like peanut butter and there was a student with a peanut allergy. So we scrubbed every table down and ventilated the room the best we could.

As for next week in my intro to Ag class we will be finishing up our unit on speech/presentation and team building. I am excited to do the team building lesson and I hope they like it as much as I do. For mechanics we will be starting to layout their woodworking projects and let the building process begin. If the weather works with us and we stay to the schedule I will be picking up the AgriEcology class.

ACES weekend!!!

ACES is a conference that the FFA holds every year for three straight weekends in February. As a school you choose one weekend to go. I never went as a student but experienced it for the first time two years ago when we took the Korean students who were over here visiting at Penn State.

This past weekend I was able to experience it again but as a student teacher. This is an event just like National Convention where you are able to connect with your students on a different level compared to the classroom setting that they are used to. Being on this trip I also got to connect with FFA members that I do not have in class which was a great opportunity.

A side from being a student and attending the workshops I got to attend the teacher workshops which were very well run. The most enjoyable one was the inquiry based workshop on tragedy of the commons which is actually a lesson I already had on my list to bring in during my populations unit. However by attending this workshop I got the real materials needed compared to my make shift ones I have come up with.

This was a short conference/trip compared to National Convention but taking all but 20 more students made it more interesting. This involved doing the curfew night checks for more than just one room and trying to reserve enough tables for meals that way the whole group was able to  sit together was an eye opener for me because even when I was in FFA and went to conferences like this with being a small school we never had more than eight people go.