Student Engagement: 412 Weekly Writing #3

Professor: "What do we (agricultural educators) teach?" 
Pre-service Ag. Teachers: "Animal science, mechanics, plant science, food science, environmental science, leadership skills, communication skills, agribusiness, marketing, record-keeping, natural resources, agriscience, applied STEM, technical knowledge and skills...."
Professor: "Yes..but no that's wrong."
Pre-service Ag. Teachers: "......huh?......."
Professor: "All of the above is our content. But we teach Students..."

The above conversation is a paraphrase of how my cohort started one of our pre-service teaching classes this past week. The question was set-up to be a trick, and once we were told the correct answer we all realized where the focus of classes this week was moving towards. We all know that our main purpose is to educate students and make an impact on them, but sometimes now when we're bustling about trying to make sure we are ready for this next year, we run the risk of getting bogged down worrying about the content that we are teaching instead of who we are teaching.

Student engagement and motivation are key topics in the classroom. We could walk into our classrooms this spring with the best written lesson plans around, but if we don't engage our students, and we can hear crickets chirping in the background, we are going to have a problem (unless of course you have reptiles in your classroom who you are feeding crickets to, in which case in might be normal to hear crickets chirping). But the point is - if your students are not motivated to be in your classroom, and don't feel engaged, then they are not going to be engaged in your agricultural program, and there is no program without students. We (teachers) cannot make an impact on the future if our present students don't want to engage with us.


There are many ways to keep your students engaged and motivated in your classroom. Rewards systems, music, games, physical movement - these are all good ways that we can keep our students engaged and motivated, but a great quote I found explains it perfectly - "not every student learns the same way, the same day" (thanks Google!), and this is true! There are so many different types of learners and so many different types of learning - but no matter what way you learn, in order to reach all your learners you have to mix it up and add a little Variability every lesson to effectively teach. Worksheets and powerpoint lectures may be a great way to deliver content, but they are never the only way and they should always be used with another more engaging activity to complement it.

Interest approaches are the main way we gain and measure student engagement. These are activities, at the beginning of a class/lesson, which tie in a student's interest with the topic/content to be learned that day. For example, when teaching an environmental science class you may take your students on a short nature walk, in a food science class you may bring in a food for the students to eat. For me, horse references always pique my interest. In order to best find an interest approach that will engage your students you have to know two things: 1) what kind of learners are they, and 2) what are they interested in. The second point is probably the easiest one to find out - you have to care about your students and get to know them as people. It doesn't have to involve checking out their after school activities or attending their sports events (though it can, and a lot of ag. teachers are very involved in their students' lives), it can be as simple as listening to student conversations during breaks, or better yet, assign an open-ended assignment where students can write an essay or complete a project on a topic of their choosing and see what they interested in.

Students are always trying to tell their story, you just have to know when and how to listen...

My Multiple Intelligences Results

The first part is a little harder, learning what kind of learners your students are. With three modalities of learning (visual, auditory, and kinesthetic), three domains of learning (cognitive, psychomotor, and affective), and multiple intelligences, it's hard to figure out especially since some learners may not even know how they learn best. To help figure this out there are many different online tests you and/or your students can take to determine your individual learning styles. A test my cohort and I took this past week determined our Multiples Intelligences, using the following link: www.bgfl.org/

Once you know what your students are interested in, and how they best learn, then you can plan the appropriate interest approaches and other activities to ensure that your classroom is filled with engaged and motivated students. There are many ways to do this and some ways include utilizing movement, summarizing strategies, cooperative learning techniques, and more. This link, and the picture to the right, show seven ways that have been found to increase student engagement in classrooms: www.readinghorizons.com/blog/seven-ways-to-increase-student-engagement-in-the-classroom


At the end of the day you have to remember that not only do your students have to be engaged and motivated in your classroom in order to learn, but you have to also remain and engaged and motivated to show up and give your best everyday, because you never know when might be the day that your students are going to get it. So always remember that no one is ever motivated to go into a classroom where they are bored, or where their teacher is bored, but if you stay engaged in your students' learning and in them, then they will stay engaged in your teaching and you.

Curriculum Planning & Design: AEE 412 Weekly Writing #2

This week starts the stressful topic of the semester....curriculum planning and design. All of us have a variety of teaching experiences - workshops, camps, programs, presentations, we all have some experience getting in front of people and delivering content. But probably the topic we've had the least experience with is actually creating and designing our own curriculum, whether it's lesson plans, unit plans or full courses of study. For me, the biggest stresser is how do I create unit and lesson plans that not only provide clear instruction and coverage of material, but that are also easily taught from and that have clear objectives without becoming just a list of activities.

The readings this week covered curriculum planning and design, from planning lesson and unit plans all the way up to planning an entire course of study for an agricultural education program. A technique discussed in the readings is "Backwards Design," something I have heard discussed in many of my education courses. Backwards Design focuses on starting with the end in mind - what do you want your students to gain from your courses, units, lessons, etc. and designing lessons and activities that progress students towards your learning objectives with clear assessments along the way. This seems pretty clear, I wouldn't just start telling a student how to do something without knowing what it is I want them to gain out of it at the end.

This is a concept that I think applies in any learning experience, not just in the formal classroom. As an example, when I'm working at my stable and teaching a new employee how to groom and harness a horse, I don't just start doing it and have them copy me. I explain to them at the beginning why each part is important - it's proper grooming and harnessing for the horse's health and safety, but also to improve business as a "spiffy" looking horse with shiny, clean harness will garner more business than a dirty horse. If I were to just tell the employee to groom and harness the horse without showing them how and without explaining the why, it's more likely that the job will not get done satisfactorily.

Backwards Design, I think is a fairly self-explanatory technique, but within all of our readings, sometimes it can get jumbled into the jargon of the various educational theories. One way I have found to better understand it is through charts and other graphical representations. In this document published by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, they work through several templates for a specific social studies unit plan, showing how a unit plan would be developed with and without backwards design. Check out the document here: http://www.ascd.org/ASCD/pdf/books/mctighe2004_intro.pdf

In this age of continuing technology use in the classroom, I also looked up various curriculum design templates online. One website I found with several potentially useful apps is http://www.chalk.com/suite. This website has apps for lesson planning, attendance, and assessments. I also found this scholastic link http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/8-apps-lesson-planning-and-classroom-management which has a list of several apps useful for teachers. Maybe we'll find at least one useful app out of these links.

Happy curriculum designing!

Supervised Agricultural Experiences: Schuykill County Fair

Thursday, July 31st, 2014: The day started out a little stressful - after sending the Gov. School scholars off to their class I headed to get my first car rental and start my solo road-trip down to the Schuylkill County Fairgrounds. After a relaxing (eventually) three hour car ride, I arrived at one of my first Pennsylvania county fairs. The familiar smell of fair food and livestock automatically confirmed that this was going to be a great day.

Display for the Tri Valley FFA Chapter in the family tent

I found Mrs. D (Mrs. Dingman but all her students affectionately call her Mrs. D) in the livestock barns right where I knew she'd be. Today was my SAE (Supervised Agricultural Experience) visit and it was also the Fair's sale day, so it was a big day for many of the FFA members busily milling about the barn. Mrs. D explained to me that a majority of her students have SAE projects, most of which are livestock which the students then show and sell at the fair. The first hour or so I was there, Mrs. D had logistics she had to handle as she is on the County Fair board, so she introduced me to several of her students and left me with them to show me around.

The livestock barns were filled with families - almost every student I talked to had several relatives also showing against them, either through the FFA or the local 4H club, which also meant I am going to have several sets of siblings and cousins in my classrooms. The students were represented in every species at the fair - rabbits, goats, sheep, beef and dairy-beef cattle, and hogs. After talking to the students for awhile I started talking to several of the parents and other family members that were in the barn, letting the students get back to preparing for the sale that evening. All the parents welcomed me into their school, and raved about Mrs. D's dedication to the FFA and her involvement in the students' lives. Many of the parents had grown up in the area and had gone through the agricultural education program (before Mrs. D arrived) and you could see the pride they had in watching and supporting their children in participating in the various FFA events, including showing livestock.

Mrs. D soon arrived back and we went over logistics of the fair and she explained her SAE policy. Students in her agriculture classes are encouraged but not required to have SAE projects, but her FFA members are, and most already come to the program with potential projects started because of livestock projects. To handle SAE visits, she has a form the students complete before the end of the school year, which has a list of dates the students can choose from where she will visit with them and check up on their projects. Most of her visits were earlier in the summer as the students were preparing for fair, and operated very similar to my experience with the parents in the barn - Mrs. D checks out the student's project(s) and then catches up with the student and their family, learning about how their summer is going and any life updates. SAE visits for her are very informal and she uses them mostly to stay updated and involved in her students' lives and keep in contact with the families. 

Working with other volunteers to register buyers for the sale

I had previously told Mrs. D that I wanted to be right by her side and experience everything she does as the agriculture teacher, so after going over her SAE process and grabbing some of the great fair food, Mrs. D told me that since she was on the fair board I would be helping her get the arena set up for the sale and then helping her, the 4H leader and several other volunteers keep records during the sale. I'd been to several sales before, mostly at the PA Farm Show, so I thought this county fair sale would be an easy night for me - boy was I wrong. After helping the FFA and 4H members set up the sale ring I began helping to register buyers, keeping track of all the paperwork and buyer numbers. I never expected so many buyers, over 200, for a fair of this size but I was happily mistaken. Community members from all over the county were there to help support the youth involved in agriculture, through their kind words and buying of animals.

The fast-talking auctioneer I had to keep up with

After registering all of the buyers came the hardest part - keeping track of sale prices and buyers of the livestock. Elbow to elbow with Mrs. D, the 4H leader, and several other volunteers, all our focus was on the auctioneer just a few feet away to make sure we kept accurate records. The next few hours flew by and after over eight hours at the fair, I finally had to start my journey home. It was a great day of being thrown right back into the livestock world, getting to meet future students and their families, and meeting key community members, like the 4H leader, that I know will be really helpful when I begin my semester there.

The view of the crowd from behind the sale arena

One of my students & one of his Grand Champion rabbits

I can't wait to work with those students more, especially during my animal science courses and getting to know them more through future SAE visits. My day ended with the sale continuing in my rear view mirror, my car filled with the smell of livestock and hay, and my radio blasting the local country station, and I could not have had a better way to end July.

Loved this FFA member's confidence as she walked into the sale arena!