Student Teaching Week 11

Teaching: More Than Just Classroom Instruction

Student Teaching this week has been vastly different than any other I've ever had.  I got to experience several aspects of teaching that extend beyond classroom instruction.  Some of it was enjoyable, some of it was rather boring.  Yet, it was really good to be able to experience all the additional aspects of teaching.  

What Has Happened

On Moday, Mopan Technical High School hosted the Primary School Examinations.  These exams are for 8th graders who are preparing to enter into High School.  The exams are part of the placement process for the students and are required for everyone to take.  This means Mopan students had a holiday!  I, on the other hand, sat through the exams as a moderator or "invigilator".  The exams lasted from 8 am until 3 pm.  There are two examination days.  Monday was Day 1 for the students which consisted of English and Science.  If I am going to be honest, I was beating my forehead against the wall with boredom.  As an invigilator you may not do anything!  Don't even breath!  

I was also getting very frustrated.  During the exams I was able to identify students who may have been considered special needs in the United States.  Yet, here, there is no help for these students.  Instead, it was obvious that they have learned to hide their disability if they have made it this far, and are struggling to succeed.  It made me think about the role of special education instruction in public schools a little bit more.

Tuesday and Wednesday were relatively normal school days.  The seniors were having presentations on the expectations of their CXC exams.  These exams are their graduation requirements and exams that enable them to apply to further education.

Thursday and Friday were teacher workshop days.  So the students also had holidays those two days.  I spent Thursday working on my biodigestor project.  Friday I chaperoned a group of students who are peer counselors for their school.  That was pretty neat.  I realized that I couldn't just take off and go exploring as I would in the student role, but rather I had to stay back and ensure all was safe.  Kind of a weird thing for me.

Reflection

Anyways, the week was good.  I have two classes which are unruly.  They are certainly a challenge to me and I find it difficult to teach.  After speaking with Dr. Penados, We worked through a couple strategies to find a way to provide discipline which will allow me to provide that structure that is needed within the classroom.  I really hate doing it but I have to go through with my consequences.  I need to realize that by punishing them I am loving them rather than loving them by not punishing them.  Ugh! It's so hard for me.  

Student Teaching Week 10

So Much Excitement!

This week was really exciting with lots of exciting events occurring.  Not only were my classes enjoyable but there was the highlight of the week; open day.  

What has already happened?

In my classes this week we discussed, embryo development within an egg, asexual and sexual reproduction, types of soils, and sheep breeds.  I'm really excited to see my sheep breeds lesson successfully turn into a more inquiry based lesson.  I had the students look at the sheep here at the school and determine what breed they were on their own.  It worked really well.  The students were able to learn a lot.

I realize though, that I really do need to change my questioning.  My style of questioning worked really well at Penns Manor.  However, it's not here.  Students here aren't used to responding but rather being lectured at.  So when they answer questions, it's because I utilize close proximity and they practically whisper the answer to me in a very non-confident manner. So after discussing a few options with Dr. Penados (my Belizean University Supervisor) I've come up with a few techniques that will help.  

They are all methods I've seen before but they were all ideas.  To share one example, I attempted a think-pair-share activity that was related to the class material.  I was hoping to get answers we could then discuss.  The problem was my question I had posed was closed to right and wrong answers.  So next time I attempt a think-pair-share activity, I will keep the question more open-ended where it will be hard to have a right or wrong answer.  When the students are sharing with the whole class, I will write all of the answers, right or wrong, on the board and collectively go through the answers.  Again, I feel like smacking myself on the forehead because I know this technique is better, it's just that it finally clicked.  

Open Day

This was such a cool event.  The whole day today, the school was open to the community.  The various classes prepared displays that they have been working on for months! to show prospective students what Mopan Technical is all about.  Words can't explain how amazing the displays were so I'll provide some pictures. 

                                           

What's in it for next week?

Next week I will continue to work on improving my instruction. It will be a short week in regards to teaching.  Monday is PSE (Primary School Examinations) day and Mopan Technical has been chosen to host the exam.  I will be an "invigilate", as they call them here.  Tuesday and Wednesday are regular school days.  And then Thursday and Friday are teacher workshops to gain credit hours for the teachers to maintain their teaching licenses.  

What I am most excited for is construction on the biodigestor which officially begins on Thursday of next week.  I'm looking forward to learning about construction and working with my students on the project.  It will be encouraging to see the fruits of my efforts to raise money for Mopan Technical.

Check in later to see what happens!

Student Teaching Week 9

Teaching Agriculture in Belize!!

This week is my first week at Mopan Technical High School in Belize. It's pretty awesome.  In addition to warm weather, the students are fun to be around, the topics I'm teaching are awesome! and I love this environment.

I've included photos of some of my highlights with a short description of what I have accomplished this week.

We began working on our biodigestor project.  The first step was to drain the water.

The biodigestor as I found it

Draining the water and cleaning the pit

                                                      

                                                                          The pit once it was finished draining

Found this critter in our pit.  Had a lesson on turtles

                       There were lots of hands on learning opportunities with the students.                                                   

                  

Here we were testing the weight capacity of an egg

Observed aquatic species in the pond.

           

              Each student has a cilantro bed we planted.

                 I also witnessed & participated in school events                                                 

       

                         I played on the teacher's team for the Mopan Technical H.S. Basketball tournament. We won!

Teaching Reflection

This week I only taught for two days.  I was pretty excited to find that the lessons I prepared to teach here at Mopan Technical were the very subjects I taught I am teaching.  With that to say, my lesson preparation has come quite handy.

Overall I was pretty satisfied with my lessons.  I have successfully turned a couple lesson more inquiry based than I had originally planned.  It was exciting to see the challenge work. I can tell that my students like to be challenged to think but boy do they make it seem like a chore to provide that for them.  

If there is one thing that I would like to change in my instruction this week, I think it would be my introduction class that I had for my third form class.  I was not expecting there to be as many students in my class as there were.  So when I did my ice breaker activity to get to know everyone's names, it turned into almost my entire lesson.  I could have cut them off, but I could tell my students were loving the activity and would have been slightly upset if I didn't give everyone their turn.  So I sped it up by making people move faster but it still took up almost my whole class period.  I was able to finish my classroom expectations, procedures and consequences, but barely.  Next time, If I have a class this big, I will try an activity that consumes less time.  Like maybe a simple "Hi my name is Joe, and I come from Succotz" type of introduction around the room. 

On the plus, it gave me a better idea of how to estimate my time for activities in future lessons.

Looking into the future

Next week should be pretty exciting.  Friday is Open Day so Mopan Technical is opening the school to everyone in the community who is looking to find a place to send their students for high school.  Students in Belize have to apply to the school they want to go to.  So the decision to pick a high school is pretty big.  I will have the opportunity to participate in that.

In my classes, I will be teaching:

1st Form (Freshman) 

~ Soil Formation

~ Soil Types

2nd Form (sophomores)

~ Sexual reproduction

~ Flower structure

3rd Form (Juniors)

~ Sheep Breeds

~ Goat Breeds

 4th Form (seniors)  

~ egg structure

~ egg growth 

                       

Peer Student Teacher Visit

Visitation with Morgan Campbell at Mifflinburg High School

On Monday March 2, I visited Morgan Campbell at Mifflinburg High School.  It was a great chance to visit a very different type of program. 

Program Comparison

Penns Manor is a very rural school in the middle of nowhere situated in a community filled with people of low socioeconomic statuses.  Mifflinburg is also very rural but the families are not as low of a socioeconomic status.  Although they may think so.  

Penns Manor is a single teacher program while Mifflinburg is a two teacher program.  

The classes that are taught are similar.  However, within the individual subjects, Mifflinburg goes into more detail because they have two teachers teaching.

Mifflinburg is clearly more involved with the FFA.  

I think from this experience and multiple other programs, I would be most interested in teaching in a multiple teacher program.  I really like the ability to go into more depth within each subject and the increased class opportunity of subjects taught.  

Morgan's Teaching

It was exciting to be able to see Morgan teaching her classes at Mifflinburg.  It was clear to me that she has grown a lot as an agricultural educator even in these few short weeks that we have had.  It was also neat to witness her excelling at some of the concepts we were learning in the fall semester.  It also helped me to physically watch her interact with the students I saw her describing to me previously that she was having trouble with.  I was able to give her some tips that were more tailored to her situation.

Overall, I can see Morgan is enjoying her student teaching internship and is doing an excellent job!

ACES

Agricultural Cooperation Establishes Success

Each year, PA FFA hosts the ACES conference for all schools across the states. I had the privilege to go to ACES this year during my student teaching.

For me, it was a great time to bring back memories of when I was in School and was able to enjoy these experiences as a high school student.  But it was also a great opportunity for me to see what a conference is like for the adviser.  During high school I always wondered what the advisers did while we were going through our workshops.  Well, now I know!

It's really awesome that Pennsylvania takes care of it's agricultural educators by providing opportunities at the conferences that they already attend to for their students.  I know that it was a good refresher for me to hear about inquiry based instruction again.  It spurred new thoughts and ideas even though I've pretty much already heard all of the information they gave me.  It was easier to think of how I can incorporate the inquiry based instruction after I've already been teaching a little.

Additionally, it was really good to have Carol Fay talk about AET.  My cooperative school does not use AET.  So it was really nice to hear more about how it can be extremely helpful within my teaching. 

After this experience, and based on my experiences in high school, I know that if I am to teach in a public secondary agricultural education program, I will most certainly take my students to as many of these opportunities as possible.  

                                   

These pictures are from the evening program after supper.  It was a great way to involve the teachers into the evening and to motivate the students.  

Supervised Agricultural Experience!

Equine Production and Goat Production SAE

Who did I visit?

For my final supervised agricultural visit, I went to the barn of Ms. Hailee Brooks.  She is actually an 8th grader who is highly involved in the FFA chapter.  If she could be, I think she would be president today.  Hailee's main SAE project is showing her Morgan horses all over the country.  She and her horses have won several national titles.  I am completely blown away by her because she's such a wonderful person, rides saddle seat which I can't do, and is very very successful.  Additionally, she works with her goat and shows it at the local fair.  Showing her horses for Hailee is a full time job.  She just enjoys her goat on the side.

Where did the visit occur?

The visit occurred at Hailee's house.  She has two barns, one with her two show Morgans and this cute little fur-ball of a pony.  Outside of the barn the goat has it's own pen and up closer to the house they have another barn where their two retired Morgans live.  Hailee gave me a tour of her whole property from the barns, to the house, to the goat pen and her riding ring.   

                                             

Previous Preparations. 

Prior to the visit, the preparations consisted of coordinating a time with Hailee, asking her if there was anything specific she needed help with, and getting directions to her house.  That was it.

Student's SAE Program

The student was involved in an Equine and Goat Production Entrepreneurial SAE. 

 Recommendations for Improvement

Since Hailee didn't even start a record book yet. My main recommendation was to start that.  She informed me that she wasn't really sure how to start so we set up a time at school for her to come in and we would work on AET to start her progress on recording her SAE project.

How does the cooperating teacher "grade" the SAE program?

In this circumstance, the cooperating teacher does not grade the SAE program.  Mostly because she is an 8th grader.

Student Teaching Week 7

Penns Manor Comes to an End

February 27th was the last week that I had at Penns Manor High School with Mr. Gerald Hughes.  It certainly was an exciting time with lots of great experiences.  My students proved to be challenging at times but overall were quite enjoyable. 

During the last week at Penns Manor, I had some fun wrapping up my classes.  I left my students at a good place.  

In my Animal & Veterinary Science class, we finished up with diary facilities discussing the different types of parlors.  

In my freshman class we wrapped up with a nice bulletin board on Mopan Technical and a class discussion about what they thought it would be like to live in Belize and some questions they wanted to ask of my students in Belize during their e-pal communication.

For my Power Technologies class, my students wrapped up small gas engines with troubleshooting which they all did very successfully.  

My Power Systems class successfully finished up their electrical diagramming and wiring.  I was very surprised with the performance of some of my students.  They blew me away with how well they did.

In my plant and Soil science class, we got the majority of the plants potted for the greenhouse sale and finished the Pesticide safety material.  We ended with presentations by the students on Pesticide Safety.

It has been a wonderful time here at Penns Manor and I've learned so much about myself, my style of teaching, where I have room to grow, and in general about people and agricultural education.

I am looking forward to my time in Belize.  Although it will be a completely different part of the world I believe it will be relatively similar in a lot of ways.  I am looking forward to teaching about soil and plant sciences with my classes in Belize at Mopan Technical High School.