Week 7: Finally a Full Week!!

So it's now the end of week seven, can't believe I'm practically halfway through student teaching already. This is the first week in a very long time where I've actually had five full regular school days yet I feel like this week has flown by faster than any other. This week was national FFA week so the hallways this week were filled with wonderfully bright yellow signs attached to each FFA member's locker, which with a chapter of over 120 members makes for a great view as you travel the hallways. 

This past week has also been my first full week co-teaching the electrical wiring class with Mrs. D, which has been a great learning experience and confidence booster for me. While parts of the shop still scare me., I do at least feel pretty confident in my electrical wiring knowledge and in helping the students figure out how to properly wire parallel and series circuits. It’s nice to know I can pick up things at least a day ahead of them. 

Traditional & Modern forms of Candling Eggs

This week was also my first visit from Dr. Foster, thanks to the weather constantly pushing it back. Overall, I think it went well and I picked up some great advice on how to increase my structure and rearrange my classroom to help make navigating it and keeping everyone engaged easier. Also getting to watch Dr. Foster geek out with my students when they whipped out their iPhones to candle the eggs before dissecting them was pretty cool. And they all seemed to enjoy “talking shop” with him as they wired together their circuits and put the finishing touches on some of their individual projects during Practicum class. 

My boys showing Dr. Foster how they do it

DDF12's snippets of Tri-Valley

The remainder of the week just flew by, between exams and quizzes in a few classes and taking advantage of the opportunity to check out another program down in Lancaster one day after school, by the time Friday rolled around, none of could keep track of what day or period it was. The school day has become much busier now, with me beginning and ending every day teaching a class since I just picked up my 8th period Ag Science I class where we are completing our safety tests before we move out into the Wood Shop to begin our tool-box project. 

And now it’s Friday. The day I would normally not rush home after school because I know I can sleep in the next day, but not this week. Tonight, to culminate National FFA Week, Line Mountain, one of my neighboring high schools, is hosting an FFA Ice Cream Social which some of my FFA Officers are attending, so I may swing by to check out the school and hang out with my officers. I also get to spend a long Saturday with them tomorrow as we will be taking a group on a long journey down to Delaware Valley College for the CDE Practice Event hosted by the DVC Collegiate FFA Chapter. I’m looking forward to another Saturday with my kids and also some CDE time, as that was always one of my favorite parts of FFA.

So I’ve just spent time after school today completely rearranging the classroom per Dr. Foster’s advice, so we’ll see how my students react when they come back Monday. It’s going to be an adjustment for sure but I think it might work out really well with the new pod set-up and if not, I can always change it again next week! Looking forward to another busy FFA weekend and the start of Week 8!

New Set-up! So much room for activities!

Short & Sweet: Week 6

It's hard to believe student teaching is already more than a third, almost halfway, over! (insert panicked face here...) This week has been a crazy short one and I think it's fair to say that amongst my cohort I think we are unofficially having a contest to see who can teach the least amount of regular-schedule school days, thanks to everyone's constant changing of schedules due to our winter weather.

This week has been short and sweet; with only two instructional days week 6 was still jam-packed, with one day spent observing another fellow student teacher at his placement center (check for a post about my experiences there), taking a group of students to the Schuylkill County Public Speaking Career Development Event, and another day of professional development with my cohort back in Happy Valley.

So while I only had two shortened days in the classroom this week (thanks record number of two-hour delays), a lot has gone on. First, the implementation of seating charts. As I am picking up the bulk of my classes part-way through their semester or year, and even with the two classes I picked up right from the beginning, at first I let the students continue to sit where they choose. For the most part this has worked fine as they haven't given me too many issues. However, some disruptions are starting to occur in my upperclassmen classes, and while the hectic schedule changes are not helping, it feels like it's the time to shake things up and change around the seating arrangement. Now since I didn't get to see all my students last week, not every class has received their new seating arrangements yet, but students talk and I can already hear grumblings about it through the hallways. But for now we're going to give it a try and see how it works out. Hopefully my students will figure out that I can always change it again and if they're good, they'll get the seats they want.

So that brings me to some of the main things I've learned in the classroom this week:
1) Students do not like change. While I have been here for awhile now, I'm still a change everyone is getting used to, and slowly but surely we'll all adjust to it.
2) Students like to push your buttons. My upperclassmen especially have been trying to find my buttons and figure out what they can do to get a reaction out of me. So far I think they've been unsuccessful but now with the new seating arrangements I think we can nip some of these issues in the bud soon.
3) Students want to see what they can get away with. Now I don't mean behavior, I mean work level and effort. Some of my students clearly work hard and put their effort into even the smallest of assignments while others need a little more pushing. Slowly they will hopefully start to realize this without having to rely on pushing from me, as grades are due soon.

So while those are three of the things I've learned in the classroom this week, I also got to spend some time with my students outside the classroom. First I got to take a group of four of my girls to compete at the Schuylkill County Public Speaking Career Development Event, hosted at the nearby Vo-Tech. Getting to spend this time with my students and other FFA Chapters was great, and definitely a much needed push to get through this section of student teaching. During the competition I served as the manuscript judge, reading the submitted speeches for all three chapters, while also serving as time-keeper, getting the chance to sit in while the students were presenting their speeches to the judges.

It was a great day of laughter, comaraderie, and great food thanks to the Vo-Tech, and a perfect way for me to witness some of my students' potential in a new light. All four of my girls did great, sweeping the Senior Prepared and Conservation Public Speaking CDE's, moving onto compete at the Area level competition in a few weeks. As I told my students after the placings were finished, getting to watch them speak and read their manuscripts was a huge plus for me, but maybe not for them because now that I know how well they write and present they can look forward to more of that in class.

Now after spending a weekend with another group of students at the ACES conference yesterday and today (see another post for reflection on that), while I am physically exhausted, I am looking forward to getting back in and hopefully having my first full week of regular classes since I came down to the Valley.

Looking forward to see what this week brings.

Trip to Twin Valley: The Other "TV"

One of our assignments during student teaching is to visit another student teacher at their cooperating center. This visit gives us the chance to see another program different than the one we're student teaching in and provides us the chance to see each other in action and pick up tips from one another, and personally I think it adds some extra support as it gives you the chance to go be the cheerleader for another member in your cohort for a day - something I think every student teacher needs every now and then.

Never-ending Humor @ Twin Valley

For my visit I decided to take a trip down to visit Toby at Twin Valley, also known as "the other TV."

I chose to visit Toby for several reasons:

1. My home program, Saul, is a 12+ teacher program and Tri-Valley is a 1 teacher program, so at Twin Valley I would get the chance to see the dynamics of a 2 teacher program
2. Tri-Valley operates on an 8-period schedule while Twin Valley utilizes block scheduling
3. At Twin Valley they have the use of an attached greenhouse
4. At Twin Valley some of their classes utilize the CASE curriculum

So Monday morning I headed into school with Toby bright and early...well not so bright and early as we received more winter weather, but after a two-hour delay we made it. 

What kind of equipment is this?...

The day started out with Toby's Introduction to Ag class, consisting of mostly 9th graders. This class utilizes the CASE curriculum and that day the students were completing an inquiry-based lab learning how to identify various scientific lab equipment that they would need to know how to use to conduct future labs. The lab was set up as a scavenger hunt, with the equipment laid out at different stations around the shop and the students had to complete a worksheet matching the identifying the equipment by matching the descriptions of the equipment's function with the chosen equipment based on appearance and prior knowledge alone. While this was an individual assignment, Toby encouraged the students to talk to one another and ask questions to determine the correct answers. Due to the shortened class period the students would be reviewing the equipment lists the next day. Overall, I think it was a fun lesson for all involved, and it was evident that the students had to really think about what they were seeing and reading to identify the equipment.

Not many of our bears would survive...

Toby's second class of the day was his Natural Resources class, and even if you did not know of Toby's background in environmental education, his passion was clearly evident in his teaching. The topic of the day was habitat requirements and learning how this can affect how well an animal survives. First we took some brief notes on the topic with Toby using his background experience to add perspective, then we played an activity where we role-played as bears and had to obtain enough resources to support ourselves throughout the year. This was a great activity and taught the students about carrying capacity and resource management.

Last class of the day was Horticulture. In this class there were a lot of different things going on. There was a group of students working in the greenhouse with Mrs. Weaver, helping to prepare it for the plants that would be arriving within the next week. In the classroom, there were also several students working on floral arrangements and some students catching up on past work due to weather-related absences. Toby worked back and forth between the students in the classroom and checking on the progress in the classroom. This class showcased Toby's ability to be flexible!

Overall I had a great visit with Toby and Mrs. Weaver and it was very evident that the students were enjoying learning from them and that he had a great rapport with his students. Visiting was a great day and left me refreshed to go back into my own classroom. I can't wait to see all the great things Toby continues to do.

ACES 2015: An Ag Teacher's Week does not end on Friday

A normal teacher's week may start early Monday morning and end late Friday afternoon, but such is not the life of an Ag Teacher. Their week may very well include six, if not all seven days of the week, multiple times throughout the year. This was one of those times.

Every spring the PA FFA hosts the Agricultural Cooperation Establishes Success Conference, better known as ACES. This was a conference I always enjoyed as a student as it was a night away from home, but this was my first attending in my "Advisor" role. Spending that Saturday and Sunday with 8 of my students was an event I had been looking forward to for awhile.

Being located not too far away from Harrisburg has its perks as our drive didn't start too early that morning, though with 8 students, 2 advisors and all our bags, we did need to take two suburbans, which meant some of my students were lucky enough to have me as their driver (good thing they knew the way).

Once we got to Harrisburg it was time to check in, put the bags in the rooms, and of course pass out the always important conference t-shirt before opening ceremonies. After opening ceremonies, it was time for the advisors and students to split up for a few hours. While the students headed off to workshops to engage in leadership development and SAE exploration, the advisors headed off to our teachers' workshops. This year the workshops focused on inquiry-based learning lead by several teachers who had participated in the DuPont AgriScience Ambassador trainings. Our lab activity focused on "fishing" snack fish out of a pond following specific limitations. This was a great activity and I could see it being used to teach a number of concepts, including carrying capacity, sustainability, the tragedy of the commons, ethics and much more. Engaging in this activity supported the saying "teachers make the worst students," as throughout the activity some teachers didn't read and/or follow the directions, leading them to make up their own rules, but everyone was fully engaged and all of us picked up something different from the activity, which I think highlights the diversity within agricultural education.

After the workshops it was time to meet back up with my students and enjoy a great meal together. This of course meant lots of teasing about desserts, and never-ending comments about the mashed potatoes that my students say they wait all year for, but first an impromptu lesson in how to tie a tie. Just goes to show that you don't need to be a boy to know how to tie a tie (guess I should learn soon).

After dinner was some time to catch up with fellow teachers and student teachers, and several of my students from home and Governor's School. After some quick catching up, now was time for the true social portion of the conference - the annual dance. All of my students were required to be at the dance for at least the first portion to check in and be social, but then were allowed to go to their rooms if they wanted. All of my students chose to stay though only a few actually danced. So what did the rest of us do? The timeless classic - played cards.

I got to spend the rest of the night talking with my students while playing cards, catching up some more with fellow student teachers, checking in on my students on the dance floor every so often to make sure everything was PG, and otherwise enjoyed a relaxing evening. Once the dance ended my students headed back to their rooms for lights out, while Mrs. D and I joined several other teachers on the nightly "courtesy corps," making a couple rounds and making sure all the students on our designated floors were quietly going to bed and not disturbing the other hotel guests.

The next morning we enjoyed another great meal, enjoyed some thoughtful reflections from the State FFA Officers, and participated in a simple community service project - writing letters thanking our nation's veterans, wounded warriors, and currently deployed service men and women. Overall, we had a great conference - I was able to interact with my students outside their comfort zones, stretching themselves to learn new things and meet new people. Everyone went home that day with great memories and new friends and while I was extra tired knowing tomorrow was Monday, it was a good refresher and boost for going back.

No Question About It - I'm Teaching Ag: Week 5

So here it is, week 5 of 15, a third of the student teaching experience down, and let me tell you I haven't had a better week yet. As bad as last week might have felt, this week has been equally good, maybe even better, even though it's been another short week.

First, my 8th graders are completely out of their shells now. They all talk in class and are willing, sometimes even jumping to share with the class or answer my questions. One of my boys, who at first was pretty shy and soft-spoken was even super excited to show me pictures of his longhorn cattle he raises that he hopes to show at next year's Farm Show (they figured out I'm a sucker for animals). I even get frantic waves and shouts of "Ms. F!" from a few if they see me walking down the hall. They really are the bright spot of my morning and they know it. I'll be a little sad when their rotation switches but I hope my next batch of 8th graders is just as enthusiastic!

Next, after what felt like a long hiatus from all the snow delays and cancellations, I got to see my Vet Science class again. They're a little behind on their research projects but we are getting them done and will hopefully be presenting them in the next few classes. Since I only got to see them once this week we did a Disease Transmission activity, where each of my "animal" students would interact with one another (swapping water) until our mysterious disease had spread throughout our herd. We were able to determine who had caught our contagious disease by utilizing our chemical test solution to see if any of the "animals" were showing symptoms (the water of sick animals turned a hot pink). Now that we documented who are infected "animals" were, next class the students will try figuring out who was our "patient zero" who spread the disease in the beginning, utilizing some inquiry-based learning.

This week I also picked up my 4th period A-day class: Electricity. Now I will admit being one of the shop classes, this is one of the classes I feel most anxious about but luckily I've been keeping up so far (I think). After two days of class, I've been able to help several students, can answer most questions on my own (though I do still double-check with Mrs. D. sometimes), and am now ready to start grading my students' wiring abilities on their plugs and parallel circuits!



And finally, my 3rd and 5th period Ag Science II-IV classes where we are learning about poultry. I will admit that being a class I teach twice a day, this was one of my rougher classes last week but I think I'm getting a handle on what seems to work well and what doesn't. So far we've had some great discussion on properties of eggs and differences among egg types thanks to a "naked, rubber" egg I made (google it, all it takes is a raw egg, some vinegar, and time!). We've also had some great discussion and short debates on which type of housing is "better" for laying hens, wire-cages or cage-free. Several of my students have worked in poultry operations either in the past or currently doing various jobs so I've been having a great time pulling in their expertise in class and seeing what they have actually seen or worked with firsthand. Now I just have to be careful to keep my lessons moving without telling them too much of what they already know.

This week was full of a lot of great things outside of the classroom also, including my first high school wrestling match, my first Ag Ed Advisory Board meeting, and my second SAE visit (first one was in the summer). Look for more blogs on those experiences!

Week 4: The week I was reminded that I have great friends...

This week has been the hardest so far...

While I have heard stories over the past few weeks of how some of my fellow student teachers have run into some obstacles, I have been pretty lucky so far. No real problems, both of my two classes behave well and follow the expectations I put in front of them, and other than trying to work around a constant changing schedule due to snow, I haven't had a bad week....

...Until this week, week 4.

To start off what could best be summed up as a "trying" week, my wonderful car Debi is no longer with me thanks to an encounter with black ice on the mountain last weekend.

Then I had a snow day Monday and a two-hour delay on Tuesday, which while it was very helpful after my adventures on Sunday, it also meant that Tuesday felt rushed all day as Ms. D. and I tried to catch up with one another and prepare for the next few weeks after an unexpected four-day weekend.
I did get to finally have my Vet Science class again and was able to complete my activity with them that I was excited for last week. While the activity did not go 100% as smoothly as I wanted it to, some of my students seemed really into it, and everyone had input on what the laundry detergent-covered, glowing, squeaky basketball dog toy had to do with vet science class. While some students were grossed out by the sticky dog toy, others gladly passed it around to their friends and enjoyed watching our hands glow under the black-light once I showed them how germs and diseases can be passed around on something as simple as a dog toy. Overall, I think it was a good interest approach activity to tie together the topic of the day, zoonotic diseases, with the overall unit of safety and sanitation.

Wednesday I picked up my 3rd class, which meant both 3rd and 5th period. I have already decided that this class is going to be my hardest points of the day. This is my Ag Science II-IV class, so 10th, 11th and 12th graders together and while we will be spending the majority of the rest of my time here learning about the poultry industry (our valley has a significant amount of poultry production, with several of my students completing SAE's in poultry-related employment), I wanted to start out the unit looking at the larger picture of global hunger and how animal agriculture can play a part.

While my new students were rowdy, they stayed mostly on topic, discussing why we have a global hunger issue and how it's not only the quantity and quality of food produced, but also the distribution of these foods and resources that play a part. And they were pretty excited about getting to eat cookies (except my wrestlers, I mistakenly brought food in on a weight cutting day).

While Wednesday was a hard day, picking up the new class, Thursday was the "trial by fire." Ms. D. and I had been preparing for the end of the week, as Friday we would both be at the state FFA record-book contest and our students would be with a substitute teacher, but Thursday Ms. D. would also be out and I would be teaching all the classes that day with the help of the substitute. To say that that day was tough would be an understatement, as some of my students took full advantage of only having me and attempting to run over me in the classroom (with their words, not equipment).

Thursday was a struggle and while it has definitely pointed out where I may run into classroom management problems and showed me where I need to improve when planning my lessons, this week has taught me some other great lessons:

1) I am student teaching at a great school with a wonderful and supportive staff and administration. Throughout my time here and this week especially, my fellow teachers have checked in with me and made sure I am surviving and enjoying my time in the valley.

2) While some of my students drive me up the wall almost every time I interact with them, I have others that I love. Many of my students, especially my girls and some of my 11th and 12th grade boys are wonderful students and are going to go onto great things after high school graduation and I look forward to learning more from them throughout the rest of my time here.

3) "Don't take it personal..." This is a piece of advice many of my fellow Tri Valley teachers and other teacher friends have told me throughout the past month, and while this is probably some of the hardest advice to follow I've received, I am trying to follow it.

4) I have an amazing support network of friends. Between my amazing cohort and the rest of my Penn State Teach Ag family, and the wonderful ag. teachers I call friends up and down the East Coast, I have had many people who were there for me this past week, with words of encouragement, laughter, tips/advice, and overall listening ears to allow me to laugh, cry, scream, praise and overall vent about my time here at Tri Valley so far. And while this week has been hard, I assure everyone that no, I have not been scared off, and I look forward to the next 11 weeks only going up from here (as long as it's not up a mountain...)

Checking out the Chickens: On-Farm Employment SAE Visit

One of the main things that sets agricultural education apart from other education fields is our three-circle model of classroom & laboratory instruction, leadership development through the FFA, and our Supervised Agricultural Experiences (SAE's). I believe that SAE's can be the easiest or hardest part of the model to implement, and that difference all relies in how you (as the agricultural educator) can package the opportunity for your students to develop real-life, hands-on work experience in the field of agriculture outside of the typical 8am-3pm (insert whatever hours your school operates) school day.

Many of my students have a Supervised Agricultural Experience, the majority being Entrepreneurship or Placement. Here at Tri-Valley we conduct almost all of our official SAE visits over the summer, especially those of our students who have entrepreneurship projects as many of them exhibit at the County Fair over the summer. Since I'm new to the community we decided to go check out some of our students' SAE's, starting with one of my students who has an on-farm placement.


Meet Nathan - Nathan is a junior in several of my ag. classes and also our Chapter Treasurer. One of my favorites in the classroom (don't worry there are several), he is always ready for a good time and seems happiest when working in the shop with the other boys. His main employment is with the Zimmerman's on a poultry and beef production farm, where he has many daily tasks but the biggest responsibility is the daily culling of the chicken flocks in the four chicken houses.

Now I will begin by saying that before this visit I knew very little about poultry production. I was just starting to teach my poultry science class and so I was just starting to learn about the poultry industry and as I was to learn on this visit, the poultry industry plays a big part in my part of Schuylkill County. So my SAE visit first started with a driving tour of Pitman, one of the main towns around Hegins (where the school is located) and where Mrs. D and several of my students live and work. It was a beautiful February afternoon, cold but sunny, and a perfect day to spend driving through town learning the town landmarks and seeing where several of the farms are located.


There were no preparations to be made ahead of time other than scheduling the visit and remembering to bring jeans and boots to wear, and as we drove up a slight hill flanked by fruit trees we arrived at the Zimmerman's. After introducing me to Sam, Nathan's boss and one of the farm's owners, Nathan, Mrs. D and I loaded up into the golf cart as Nathan drove us to our first chicken house to begin his shift.

Now Nathan did forewarn me about what I would experience walking into the chicken house but nothing could prepare me for the immediate fogging of my glasses and overwhelming smell of ammonia as we entered the massive but tiny (and fluffy) flocks of over 2,000 chicks per house. Nathan's job was to walk through each of the chicken houses and collect any deceased chickens, and also cull any chickens that were not reaching the level of health and growth they should based on their age.


I was amazed both at how much Nathan could know about the birds' health by looking at them and also by Nathan's ability to explain everything he was doing and how everything operates to me. Nathan is usually one of my students who doesn't always want to talk and participate in class so it was a great experience for me to see him in his element explaining how he monitors the chickens' health when to me they all looked like a massive group of walking yellow fluff-balls.

Having to evaluate the program, it was clear that Nathan was learning skills along the way. He was not just picking up dead chickens as it might first appear. He was learning how to monitor the chickens' health via physical signs, how to selectively cull birds before issues could become worse or birds could use up many resources, and learning about how the business production works as a whole. His tasks changed based on the season and appeared that he continued to grow in responsibility.


His biggest recommendation for improvement was to improve his record keeping skills. He had been keeping his records in his hard-copy record-book. We suggested he move over to the online AET system so he could update it on his phone while he was at work, and getting him to switch over is a work in progress.

Overall, at Tri-Valley we "grade" their overall SAE program on their record-keeping skills and some students are better than others. We also grade it based on the interactions we have with students at their placements or with their entrepreneurship projects at Fair - can the students explain what they are doing and the reasoning behind it or are they just completing tasks, and it seems that most students are doing a good job at finding projects that work for them and also allow them to grow in some function.

Overall, I had a great first visit for the semester, and learned a lot about chickens and my student Nathan, and I'm looking forward to my next visit.