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.