Who is Amanda Leigh Forstater? Brown Bag Edition

In class this past week we started a series of activities called Multicultural Moments, various activities to help us understand how and why all kinds of diversity are important in our classrooms (and our lives), and to begin we had to pick words and/or phrases which describe ourselves and then talk with one another to learn about each other.

Now to take it one step further, our cohort is completing this Brown Bag scenario, where we can only choose three things to put into a (virtual) brown bag to give to someone else to explain who we are and so we are posting pictures of those things and an explanation of why we chose them and then writing about why it's important to do this activity to get to know our cohort. Hope you enjoy my answers, I'm enjoying reading my cohort's. Hopefully they post theirs on their blogs as well.

#MulticulturalMoment Brown Bag Edition:

Who is Amanda Leigh Forstater?

If I could only put three things into a bag to give to someone else to explain who I am this is what I would choose:

Showing my first market animal in my first FFA jacket

1. My FFA Jacket

My FFA Jacket is one of my most prized possessions and for me it symbolizes my roots in agriculture and where I come from. One of the traits that most people say I most have is loyalty and that jacket symbolizes where a lot of my loyalty lies - with the Philadelphia FFA Chapter and all the people who have influenced me and my family through that organization. For me that jacket symbolizes my connection to Saul, and my connection to agriculture, and knowing that I can help put similar jackets on future students keeps me motivated to keep on keepin' on.

Teddy, my old friend who took me to prom

2. A picture of my (sort of) horses

While my FFA jacket symbolizes my roots in agriculture, horses were my first passion and what really set me on my path into agriculture. I've loved horses for as long as I can remember and have the elementary school stories, poems, and drawings to prove it. While I have never actually owned my own horse (yet!), I have been fortunate enough in having access to several great ones, first through Saul's herd and then more personally with the lovely drafts giving tours in Historic Philadelphia. I've been lucky enough to be able to call over 30 different horses my dear friends over the past almost ten years and they've opened me up to a wonderful part of my city I had almost forgotten. I can't wait to one day own my own horses but these carriage horses will always hold a special place in my heart.









3. A picture of my family (extended version)

Just some of my extended family

I have a different definition of family than some people. Most people define family by blood or marriage but I define family as the people (and animals) who love and care about you and those who you also love and care about. I've been lucky to have a lot of people I consider part of my extended family, but it starts with my parents, my sisters, and my Mom-mom and Pop-pop. These are the people who have raised me (or been raised with me) and I know that while we fight we love each other. I also include my four-legged family members because I've been lucky to have many animals play a part in my life and especially the five wonderful dogs I was lucky enough to grow up with. And finally I have had lots of friends and mentors I've considered family members and the bulk of them have come from Saul and my fraternal family, Alpha Zeta.






So that is what I would put in a brown bag to describe myself, though I know that if I could choose more than three items there would be plenty more ways I could explain.

Why is it important to share these "Brown Bags" with each other?

Because we need to know each other. Some of us know each other better than others, some of us have known each since high school (or earlier), but no matter how well we already knew each other, we need to get to know all of us on a deeper level if we're going to get through this year (and beyond) together. A flock is not just a group of random geese flying all together at once - a flock is a group of tight-knit geese who are there for one another in times of need, and who keep in flight with one another and they can only do that because they all know how each other fly and how they fall, what will motivate each other, and what will take the wind right out of their feathers.

Yes, a flock works together towards a common goal just like our cohort is working towards surviving this next year. But a flock is also working together to keep the flight moving forward, both on this season's journey and next season's, and I think that's how a cohort works together - we work together to get through this year and to transition into the PA Ag Ed family and the National Ag Ed family, keeping each other flying forward towards our goals beyond May.

That's why I think it's important to really get to know each other, because our influence on each other will go beyond May, even if we join other flocks.

Cooperative Learning & Field Trips: AEE 412 Weekly Writing #4

So this past week has been crazy, we turned in our first lesson plan, our first unit plan, and our teaching lab was "our first day of school," and I'm sure I'm not the only one who's thinking that there is going to need to be a steep learning curve between now and January. We're all fully experiencing the "Doing to Learn" aspect of agricultural education as we attempt to learn how to prepare lesson plans, unit plans, and objectives (oh my!) by writing our first drafts, a lot of us have agreed this fall is essentially trial by fire. I think one of the things that worries us the most is we know what we want our final products to look like - we know what the ideal classroom will look like and how it will run and we know that we want our students to always be learning and engaged; we want to use multiple modalities to reach the multiple intelligences of our students and challenge them to higher orders of thinking - but how do we do that all the time while increasing the variability in both our content and teaching methods?

Two of the ways we can do this, and two of the ways I'm now thinking are the hardest for teachers to implement is cooperative (group) learning and field trips. Based on our readings and past experiences in classes, I think we all know how field trips and group learning can go either really great or really bad - as a young student I loved trips to the Academy of Natural Sciences to learn more about biology and evolution (what kid doesn't love dinosaurs?) and I love working in groups where you can build off of each other's strengths. But I also know how annoying it can be as a student when everyone in the group does not pull their weight or when you go on a field trip and the guide's tour is putting you to sleep and you have no reason to stay engaged (no activity to complete, no quiz, etc.) What I am starting to learn is that the reason these strategies are used effectively in a classroom far and few between is because of the logistical nightmare these can become.

How do you decide which students to pair together? Do you assign roles or have the students choose? How big of a group is too big? (Readings suggest 2 or 4 students, allows for pairs) How do you keep students engaged during field trips? Do you have well planned activities/assignments pre-trip, during trip, and post-trip? Have you figured out all the logistics for planning a field trip? (Administration approval?)

These are just the tips of the iceberg when it comes to what a teacher has to worry about when utilizing either of these two teaching techniques, but when used effectively they create great learning opportunities that fit well into the full three-circle model of agricultural education. For example, you are teaching a small gas engines course. In groups of four, you have students work through the processes of identifying the parts on a engine, disassembling and then reassembling the engine, and finally trouble-shooting the engine as a final assessment. Not only have your students worked well together because they were fully engaged in the project, you taught your students how to work together, how to solve a problem using critical thinking, and provide them with real world applications because if they were working in a mechanics shop they would probably not be working solo on a project (you may have also set yourself up with a great Small Engines CDE team for that extra outside the classroom enhancement).

Just make sure your classroom doesn't end up like this

That is just one great example of how cooperative learning can be used in an agriculture classroom and when used effectively it enhances your curriculum, not only teaching your content but enhancing the real world applications of your content and providing your students with opportunities to gain the interpersonal skills they need in their future careers.


Next example, you are teaching an environmental science course and are teaching about forestry and wildlife. You can only teach your students about the different kinds of plants or wildlife for so long through powerpoint lectures. A great field trip would be taking your students to the local environmental/nature center, town park, or even a well-kept section of woods (this may even be on school property). This could be a great field trip but if it just becomes a hike in the woods it will only be great for some students and may not result in the learning opportunities you want. But if you present students with the identification and basic information before the trip, provide them with detailed pictures of the location (maybe a virtual tour if possible), engage with a local wildlife agent/expert who can lead a tour of the area and present the desired engaging content, and then culminate the experience with a project the students present upon returning, engaging in reflection on the trip and presenting knowledge gained, you can create an amazing field trip experience.

Too often I think that teachers (all teachers, not necessary ag. teachers) forget that a field trip does not have to be a huge trip that requires buses to a big museum, it can be a hike to the pond behind the school or to the veterinary clinic in town, as long as the students are engaged and that there is connections between content and the experience before, during, and after the trip.

Field trips and cooperative learning can be great education additions to the classroom and I can't wait to experience my first trip with my Tri Valley students next month to the National FFA Convention in Louisville, Kentucky, and hopefully to some different ones this upcoming spring. My upperclassmen will be going on a few short field trips to the forest land on the school property to learn about proper forest stewardship, incorporating service learning and some wildlife habitat construction and I can't wait to see how that turns out (successful hopefully).

To get the ball rolling on some ideas for field trips in your classroom, or if you're location bound and need to bring a field trip to you, I found a great link with resources for various virtual field trips for teachers: http://www.theteachersguide.com/virtualtours.html

Get your kids in groups and start planning some happy, engaging field trips!

Reflective Teaching Lesson: AEE 412 Lab #1

For our first teaching lab this semester we had to conduct a Reflective Teaching Lesson, or RTL, with our students (our peers) on a random topics. These topics ranged from being skill specific to being abstract concepts, and my lesson topic was the Bowline Knot. I had to teach my students (my peers) how to tie the Bowline knot and their end of class assessment was to tie the knot and I would inspect their knot to see if they had done it correctly. I had never used this knot before preparing for this class so I had to learn how to tie it before I could teach them, and also find an interesting way to teach them since it is a fairly straightforward task to complete.

I started my lesson off by using Lassie as an interest approach, telling my students that when they entered the classroom they had fallen into a well and had called Lassie to bring help. I was their help and had brought rope to pull them out, but that they needed to tie the Bowline knot into their rope  in order to make it safe to pull them out. I showed the students a picture of the knot and its steps on a powerpoint at the front of the class and tied the know with them at the front of the class. I followed up by showing a video of tieing the knots, which I narrated because we did not have audio in our classroom, and then taught my students a story about a rabbit which described how to tie the knot step-by-step. After working with the students to tie the knot several times I told them to tie it one more time without my help, and once they felt ready I would assess their knots and determine if I could pull them out of the well; and everyone passed the test.

Overall, I think the lesson went well even though I had just learned the knot and was nervous, but I don't believe I appeared nervous according to the video recording (which makes me more relaxed for the future, especially since I am teaching several courses that I have very little background and/or experience in). Even though the lesson did go well I can always improve any lesson so below are the many positives and negatives I have about my Reflective Teaching Lesson:

Positives:

• Used the story about Lassie and the well for my interest approach
• Students seemed to enjoy it and find it realistic
• Students felt it was very clear that the goal was to tie a knot
• Students liked that multiple teaching techniques were utilized
• Picture diagrams, video tutorial, hands-on demonstration, and a story 
• Students appreciated the patience and individual attention
• Students appreciated the enthusiasm and positivity
• Students appreciated the hands-on topic and approach

Negatives:

• I did not account for technology difficulties
• No audio (though I was able to narrate video)
• What if the video/internet had not worked?
• I need to be clearer with direction, talk louder and clearer
• When watching the video playback I felt that I needed to talk clearer, have all my words/sentences thought out before I spoke (nerves get to me quickly)
• To avoid this, maybe script out the lesson to counteract nerves?
• Have extra string in case of knots
• Had some extra string but if every student had needed more I would not have had enough
• Have plan for if students get the concept faster 
• Need a challenge step so the lesson doesn't go stale
• But requires me to learn more challenging knots (material)
• Account for student placement in class and ability to see teacher
• Hard for Deanna to follow along at times since she was in back of room
• Try using a larger rope that is easier for students to see
• Maybe demonstrate in a better location in classroom, maybe to side of students