It's In My Nature

This past week at NAAE National Convention has been an incredible experience. I am so thankful to Penn State For this entire experience. I have had the opportunity to meet some of the nation's best agricultural educators from across the country. These are leaders who were once in my shoes and have done a phenomenal job at building their local programs. I had the chance to interact with current Class of 2020 Ag Ed students from a number of universities. It was really cool to talk to those students from other universities and hear about the struggles that they are having. We actually have the same challenges and were able to give each other advice on how to best work through those problems. It was also great to work with Ag Ed members from Pennsylvania. California is quite the journey from PA. But seeing their commitment, dedication, and attendance to this conference reminded me of the value. It was great to interact with them and learn some of their skills that they use! The n...

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 As a student, how do you feel if your teacher goes to a week-long conference and leaves the classroom for a full week? 2) For your cooperating teacher and/or university supervisor Laura Metrick, do you apply for NAAE awards? Would you ever consider going to the NAAE National Convention? 3) For one of your current virtual mentors (be specific!) and/or your cohort To Team Witmer virtual Mentors, How do you determine the value of a conference? There are so many great conferences to go to, how do you pick the ones you go to?

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.