Effective Questions and Languaging in Instruction.

What is a Proper Question to Ask?

Sometimes the hardest part about a day is asking and answering questions.  As a professional educator, I want my students to learn critical thinking skills so they can become problem solvers.  In order to do this, I need to make sure that my students are reaching the higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy.

For myself, this is a weak point in my teaching skills.  I need to practice developing questions that require a student to think before they answer.  I am really good at asking recall questions, but they are only appropriate for specific results. 

In regards to answering student's questions,  I tend to think that I need to have all the answers.  In reality, however, students are very bright and can find the answers themselves or answer a peer's question.  This reaches a much greater level of student development.

A great opportunity for students to develop questions is field trips.  If managed properly, this can be a great way to give students a close and personal perspective of the content being taught.  However, it is crucial that proper planning is placed before and during the execution of a field trip.  

These planning phases include Pre-Trip, Trip, and Post Trip planning.   

Here is an article on American Public Education under utilizing local resources for valuable field trip planning.  Think Outside the Classroom!

The Educational Value of Field Trips

Interest Approaches

How Can I Capture Student Interest?

On Wednesday I had the opportunity to create and demonstrate an interest approach.  Personally I believe there was some improvement in my performance from last week's AEE 412 lab. Which, in the big picture, is the goal of these practice labs.

 I appeared, and felt, more calm and relaxed.  This showed through my ability to provide clear instructions.  If you read through my blog from last week, you'll notice I struggled with repeating myself, saying specific words over again, being clear in my expectations and talking too fast.  Since I felt more at ease, most of those issues were not a problem.

What I do need to work on, is being creative.  I struggle with it and it certainly doesn't come to me very easily.  This I just need to practice.  I have noticed, as I continue to write lesson plans, ideas pop into my head quicker than they had when I wrote my first lesson plan.  Which means, I just need to keep practicing.  

I know for a fact that having really engaging interest approaches are going to be critical during my student teaching experience.  Especially while I am in Belize at Mopan Technical School.  Students there do not pay attention, they are very rarely engaged in the class instruction, and chitter chatter most of the time.  I struggled with getting student involvement and participation while I was teaching a lesson on Caribbean Livestock.  I believe the students can greatly benefit from successful hooks in the beginning of class. 

What Does A Good First Day of School Look Like?

He who opens a school door, closes a prison. ~Victor Hugo

Do You Remember Your First Day of School?

laborenglishzone.blogspot.com

Was your first day of school so full of enthusiasm, energy, and anticipation that you woke up early the next morning just to be sure you were there on time?  Or was your first day of school the hum-drum of syllabus day, monotonous and boring?  Maybe you didn't even go, you skipped out to sleep in late and you'll probably skip tomorrow too.

teachingjunkie.blogspot.com

We want our students to stay in school.  We want our students to succeed! So we have to hook their attention on the very first day of school and maintain the momentum throughout the semester. 

Why is it that the First Day of School is always so exciting yet a rather large disappointment?  It's because we fail as educators to grasp student interest, real them in tight, and hook them on the material that is their future.  

I was able to develop my Lesson plan for my first day of school and present it to peers.  Yup!  I need some work too.  While I still believe I had an good overall plan, I need to express my enthusiasm through body language, speech, and facial expressions more vividly.  I perceived time was moving quickly, yet, when I watched a video of my presentation, It looked like I was moving slowly.  It's amazing how our perceptions change! As I watched my video, I made a list of comments on my performance.  Here is what I had:

    "I say "so" way to many times. My directions were not clear at all. I may have just completely ignored Janae's question and confusion about the initial activity. I need to fix my "Example" expectation. My name isn't Ms. Rice :) I repeat some words a lot while I'm talking. The students were easy to manage, no problems there. I need to spend more time explaining each item on my expectations poster. STOP SAYING EXCITING!! Why did I say I was going to throw the posters out? Also, I had forgotten to mention that each class of the day will be creating a poster and then the next day each class would vote on the best one to be hung up in the classroom all year."

This Wednesday, I will be presenting an example of an Interest Approach.  Hmmm...What will be in store?

Stay tuned to find out more!

Exploring Learning Objectives and Group Teaching Techniques

Learning Objectives

Learning Objectives: Here is one of the most critical components of lesson planning.  I need to be able to provide my students a framework for the day's lesson, otherwise they fail to see any purpose in the lesson.  Yet, I need to be able to construct objectives that will lead the class into effective learning.

Poorly written objectives can have many negative effects on students.   For example, students may become overwhelmed with the material they will be learning and give up in class.  One of my classroom expectations is that students do not give up.  If I expect them to work hard all the time, I can't be setting them up for failure.  

Additionally, objectives help us to reach the higher levels of cognitive learning.  It is also really important to ensure that our lesson plans and teaching techniques match the level of cognitive learning that we write in our objectives.

Group Teaching Techniques

Before I start, here is a link I found to the top ten group teaching techniques.  This is a helpful resource to have on hand for ideas when creating lesson plans.

http://www.huntingenglish.com/2013/01/12/top-ten-group-work-strategies/

One main lesson for me from the reading in Newcomb's Methods of Teaching Agriculture was that I need to work on re-framing my mindset when it comes to lectures.  I despise lectures.  So I don't want to plan "lectures". Yet lectures are a really great way of providing factual information to a whole group of students.  However, excellent lectures avoid using monotonous teaching techniques.

With proper organization of the material, enthusiasm, variability in the rate and intensity of speech, illustration of major points, and a good summation of the content, lectures can be really exciting and engaging.  

Personally, I like challenges.  So I challenge myself to design the most engaging "lectures" so my students trash the idea of lectures being boring and dismal and dumb.  But rather, I want my students to be excited to come to my class for the next lecture I have waiting for them. 

AEE 412 Weekly Writing #3 - Objectives and Interest Approaches.

blog.readytomanage.com

"If you fail to plan, you plan to fail." 

-- Unknown

How truer can a statement be?  Believe it or not this statement is relevant for both the Military and for Teaching Agricultural Education.  Let's explore this idea a little bit.

Army - 

       Planning, it's what we do.  We plan missions, we plan actions, we plan training, we plan for the best case scenario, we plan for the worst  case scenario, we plan how to approach issues, we plan how to approach our subordinates and higher officers.  Everything is planned.  Without that plan, it is easy to fail.

Agricultural Education - 

      Planning: we create lesson plans for every course taught.  We have program plans, budget plans, fundraiser plans, curriculum plans, plans for field trips, plans for extra activities, plans for SAE projects, plans for the FFA, plans for approaching administration and school board, for promoting the organization to the public.  Everything is planned.  And again, without that plan, it is easy to fail.

The question is, where do we start in our planning processes?  In both the Army and Agricultural Education, we begin our planning with the objectives.  Methods of Teaching Agriculture says objectives help teachers decide what is relevant,  direct the sequence of instruction, how to evaluate, what knowledge and skills need to be learned, place parameters and define the limit and scope of instruction.  Boom ba-da Bang!! There is a large portion of the plan.  All by simply defining the objectives.   

In class there was lots of discussion about writing our objectives so that they reach the higher levels of Bloom's Taxonomy, so they reach the Cognitive, Psychomotor, and Affective Domains of learning and so that they are written in the SMART format.  Here is a link from Penn State's Learning Design Hub that has examples of objectives that follow these formats.  It also includes a very basic "How To" for writing objectives which is very helpful.

http://ets.tlt.psu.edu/learningdesign/objectives/writingobjectives

I know that as I continue to design my lesson plans in preparation for student teaching I will be sure to take the time and ensure that my objectives are well written.  For it is apparent that this will enable me to create effective lessons.  In addition, as I continue to write plans for the Army, I will make sure that solid objectives accompany each plan and make sure they are written clearly.  

Wait...Teach Ag! in the Army?

  

Good Evening!  My name is Kate Bassett.  I am starting this professional blog to document and share the connections between two of my life passions:  Agricultural Education and the Army!

                                             

                                                      
                                                                   Confused?

That's ok.  As I progress through my senior year at Penn State University I hope to clarify how the two are associated and how incredibly similar they are.  Upon graduation, I plan to work my way through the military as a 2LT and teach agriculture, especially in developing countries.

Follow my Blog and learn how I have designed my coursework to embark on an exhilarating journey in Agricultural Education!! 

Here's a sneak peak on a couple exciting things to come:

Student teaching in BELIZE!

Agricultural work SPEARHEADED by the military.

U.S. military and USDA efforts have specifically highlighted agricultural development as a key objective
http://www.newsecuritybeat.org/2010/05/can-food-security-stop-terrorism/