It's In My Nature

And just like that... Today is the final day of student teaching. I can't believe it. This semester has flown by and has taken a turn that I never could have imagined. I never would have thought that this would be the way student teaching would end. Although, through these unfortunate times, I have grown even more as an educator and learned so many more great things through distance learning. There has been an overwhelming number of resources that has been shared and I can't wait to use them in the future. Student teaching was not like anything I could have expected. Going into this, there are so many fears and concerns. So many questions. But all of that worrying and stress was for nothing. This was an amazing experience. Yes, there were many challenges and stresses for preparing the right lesson and planning for the next week. But it was all worth it. I might not have been able to teach all of the lessons and units I wanted, but that's okay! All of the time and energy t...

I was able to participate in the western regional PAAE meeting last night. This meeting looked different then what it was supposed to look like due to COVID-19. But, it was still very beneficial. I enjoyed listening to all of the different Ag teachers talk about their role in PAAE and in their region. Everyone comes together as Ag educators and dedicates even more time to making this community better and stronger. As much as I would have enjoyed seeing and meeting all of these western Ag teachers in person, the Zoom meeting was a good alternative. There are a lot of different things that I think PAAE does really well at. All of the committees and subcommittees seem to work great with one another and really accomplish a lot. The organization is impressive. I also think it is really cool how supportive Penn State's Center For Professional Development is in supporting the Ag Teachers of Pennsylvania. The western region has some great leaders in Ag Education. The term "West is t...

Before this pandemic began, I was supposed to visit Jess Barnhart at Brockway High School at the end of March. One day I was going to visit her and the next day she was going to visit me. Penn State makes the student teachers go and visit other schools to see what other student teachers are doing and to see other programs. This is actually a great idea because of how diverse Ag Ed really is. Every program in the state is different from the program size, to the FFA chapter, SAE's, and even the facilities and classes offered. Visiting other schools and teachers helps to see how other things are done and can spark ideas so that you can take those ideas back to your school. Sometimes even adding to your list of "The Dream Program". Last year, when I was looking for cooperating schools to complete my student teaching, I actually toured Brockway High School. Brockway has a really cool program with Mr. Holt and Mr. Norm. This two teacher program is definitely a little differen...

With these strange times, continuing to monitor SAE projects and conducting visits can be challenging. Especially simply engaging with the students. I was supposed to participate in a second SAE visit but COVID-19 happened. This caused me to have to do my second SAE visit virtually. Definitely a different experience but it is helpful to have great students with great projects. During this time and the school standards, SAE projects can't be mandatory. But I am impressed by how many students are still actively doing their projects and keeping accurate records on AET. The records look great. Most students are keeping daily logs. Maybe start inforcing students to post daily pictures and this could fill in for an SAE visit? Overall, it's amazing as if this pandemic hasn't impacted their projects at all. In fact, it has helped some of the students get caught up in records and journal entries. Even though student teaching is ending here soon, thinking ahead, what is going...

It is hard to believe that there is only one more week of student teaching. It's weird. Where has the time gone? It's amazing everything that has happened in the last 15 weeks. I don't even know if I could define what student teaching really is at the moment? These are crazy times and this situation was by no means expected. But this experience has given me a lot of opportunities to become more well-rounded as an educator. My teaching toolbox has grown tremendously. The amount of online resources that I have discovered during this time is amazing. There is so much out there. Maybe that is the best part of this COVID-19 epidemic. People have been putting more resources online and sharing their resources with teachers than ever before. I am not only gaining all of these resources to use now and in the future classroom, but I am also learning along the way too. The best thing that I have done this last week is to engage in professional development through Zoom. There have ...

Many times in high school classrooms, students feel that their hard work on long in-depth research projects can sometimes go unnoticed. Yes, their teacher reviews the project after the due date but once that project is graded. Then what?  Most projects are forgotten about. Students can see that. Spending weeks working on an in-depth project only for it to be forgotten about as the unit ends. The majority of the time, students are doing really cool projects in the classroom but what is that connection? How can students see the value in their projects long after the due date? By connecting their projects and course curriculum to Citizen Science Projects. What is Citizen Science?  Citizen Science is where any person with any background can participate in real-world research projects through observations, collecting data, communication, and/or collaboration. There are a large number of research projects around the world that are looking for dedicated individuals who share their...

This week of student teaching is proving to be another valuable learning experience. This online and distance learning can be challenging and the time it takes to prepare lessons that can be accommodating for all can be very time-consuming. But when these lessons are not required by the school and yet, students still log on to do the assignments, definitely make the time commitment worth it. Since COVID-19 was not planned for or expected, student teachers everywhere are missing out on valuable experiences. Penn State has created alternative assignments for us to complete over the next few weeks until our student teaching internship is over. These assignments are an addition to still providing online learning for our students. Some of my alternative assignments that my cooperating teacher, university supervisor, I have come up with are a lot of professional development. Pursuing professional development learning certificates like Google Classroom and Project Learning Tree. I am also tak...