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.