It's In My Nature

I had an awesome opportunity to sit down with Conneaut Area Senior High School and talk to their FFA officer team about Parliamentary Procedure. The officers did not have a lot of experience with Parli Pro but neither do I! I was able to teach them the basics and at the same time, I was able to better understand it myself. They asked so many great questions and wanted to learn more. There were even two times that I was unsure of the answer so we dove into Robert's Rule of Order to find it! The first activity was going through the process of how to make a motion. I created a set of cards on each step of making a motion, from obtaining the floor to the chair announcing the results of the vote.  Their first task was to take those steps and put them into order. I divided the officer team up into two groups to complete this activity. Each group was able to put the cards into order after a few attempts! Once we completed this activity, we went through each step and looked...

For my Ag Mech Demo, I chose to teach it at CASH in Ms. Metricks Ag Mech class. Originally I was very nervous about the assignment because I have only ever welded twice before. I am by no means a professional welder.  I was demonstrating to the students how to lay a bead, which they all already knew how to do that. I accomplished this task the only way I knew how to have fun with it. I was straight up with the students and told them that this was only my third time ever welding. I also very confidently told them that they can all weld better than me! After I gave my demonstration and had two students do the same thing, turns out I was right! I think an important part of teaching that I have learned through my Penn State experience is being willing to learn with your students and being able to laugh at yourself sometimes. Welding is definitely not my cup of tea and I have so much to learn. But going into the class with a growth mindset helped me through it...

For my life knowledge lesson, I chose a leadership lesson from the FFA called defining leadership. I really liked this lesson and I think the students did too! There were a lot of handouts and a lot of different activities that took place but I think the students thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a great learning experience for not only myself but all the students that participated. I taught Ms. Metrick's period 6, Ag 1 and period 7, Ag Sci class. In the first class, Ag 1 was great. We got through all the learning objectives and went through the entire assignment. The class engaged and participated very well. At the end of the class, for the student's ticket out, they had to answer the question, What is leadership? and write down who they look up to as a leader. This was really cool to see all the different answers for who they look up too. They also all answered the question right in What is leadership? Leadership is influence. The second time teaching this class was a...

I had the privilege of completing my Micro Teaching at Tyrone Area High School with Mrs. Hoy. I learned a lot over the last few days. This was definitely a challenge but I had a lot of fun along the way. I got to teach about the water cycle for three days and the last day being a soil erosion lab. Even though we had fun and did some cool things, it proved to be a challenging time. The students were a rowdy bunch and that made it difficult to teach. It was challenging because the class is a very talkative group. With the group being so talkative, it made it challenging to keep students on task. That was the hardest part. It became frustrating at times when students were not paying attention and acting up in class. With that learning challenge, there was still progress made. On the first day, I gave the students a quiz before any content to see what they knew. The class average on that quiz was a 20%. On the final day, I gave that same quiz on the water cycle and the class ave...

I am extremely excited about this week and microteaching! I am teaching in Tyrone with Ms. Hoy's Natural Resources class. I get to teach a 3-day lesson on the water cycle and I have a lot of cool things planned. On the first day, we are going to go over and learn some essential vocabulary for the water cycle and the students are going to create their own flip chart. On the second day, we are going to play the water cycle game. I am excited for this game because it is going to get students up and around. They will have to name the proper process of the water cycle throughout the game. We will also be able to introduce water pollution into this step of the 3-day unit. On the last day, we are going to get our hands dirty and look at how water can influence and move soil. We are going to talk about soil erosion. I can't wait to teach this day. Here is a YouTube video giving an idea about the type of lesson, the third day will be.

This inquiry-based learning workshop was an awesome 24-hour experience. KP from Greenwood really drove this topic home for me on what inquiry-based learning really is. It was awesome to see how this learning model really can get students excited about learning. There is so much self-learning that goes into and I think that's why I like it so much. It follows a scientific model and allows for the learner to create their own questions, conduct their own research and then effectively communicate their findings. For my inquiry-based lesson, I had the students get assigned a source of alternative energy. Then the students were given a partner and then given the Case study: You have been selected by Penn State to find an alternative energy source to power the University Park Campus. The University is looking for three things, cost efficiency, eco-friendly, and most energy-efficient solution. Remember, each alternative energy source has pros and cons. The best solution may be a c...

For my Week 8  Investment Blog, I am presenting 3 questions from our assigned readings.   1) For your future students and/or future school administrators   When a teacher asks students to sit and gather your thoughts before a discussion, do you find that time productive or distracting? 2) For your cooperating teacher and/or university supervisor   Laura Metrick, how do you use the think-pair-share? Do you find it productive for students to gather their thoughts? 3) For one of your current virtual mentors (be specific!) and/or your cohort   To Team Witmer virtual Mentors, what is an effective way to use the think-pair-share approach? I think it would be a cool idea to introduce new topics but I'm not sure if that is the proper time to use this approach.

My national FFA Convention experience has been nothing short of awesome. This was only my second time ever attending national convention. Last year, I attended national convention with Penn State's LEAD Society and that was an awesome experience as a collegiate student. Competing in ATA (Alpha Tau Alpha) events and meeting other collegiate students. This year I had the opportunity to have the advisor hat on. Understanding and looking at all the different moving pieces with a different mindset. It was so cool to see all the different parts. This is all thanks to an awesome cooperating teacher, Ms. Laura Metrick, and being on top of everything. Beyond thankful for this opportunity. This is the point of the semester where preparing for student teaching is beyond challenging. There are so many different moving parts and it's hard to stay organized and keep everything in line. It can become incredibly overwhelming and stressful really quick. This trip was a great opportunit...

Inquiry-Based Learning is extremely important when relating it to Agricultural Education. You can implement this to all forms of Ag Ed. From the reading, we learn that inquiry-based learning starts with a problem or a specific type of information. Once the information is presented students dive deeper into the content and look at all the different parts that then help to create questions. Once those questions are addressed by students and the instructor is finished asking questions, students create. This is taking all that information previously gained and then apply to it. There are so many different types of lessons that inquiry-based learning can be applied too. The best examples that come immediately to my head are problems that students need to find a solution too. An idea is introduced to students, information is gathered, questions are answered and results are made. Now fit that into a problem such as climate change, disease in your greenhouse, or even solving in...

This past week, I had the privilege of talking to a number of different teachers from different states. I spoke to teachers from Iowa, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. I learned that most of the teachers do a lot of similar things for taking care of their students back at school during National Convention. They all explained that it depends on the sub. Some subs can be great and have a general idea of what is going on can successfully do lessons. Other subs cannot relate to the content and are almost hopeless when it comes to teaching Ag content. In situations of poor subs, then teachers will give students a lot of content knowledge from videos and they will be responsible for specific notes/vocabulary words learned from the lessons. Ms. Metrick gives students a packet for each day with the information that their students will learn from the resources. They then have to fill in vocabulary words throughout the week for a quiz on Friday. Other teachers such as Mr. Smith from Iowa brings in an...