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.

Student Teaching Week 6

FFA Week Celebrations!

I don't think any week in agricultural education is ever the same!! The unexpected events just keep rolling right in.  The highlight of my week is celebrating National FFA Week!!

 

It's been a fun-filled week full of activity. From banners and decorations, to faculty appreciation breakfast, to scavenger hunts, elementary school visits, nursing home help, and more.  

Additionally, There has been lots of fun in my classes.  We had a great time capturing what we learned about appropriate technology specifically related to biodigestors.

  

The students are pretty excited about learning what's going on in Belize.  We've made a bulletin board that will record what is happening in Mopan Technical High School.  

My animal & veterinary science students finally finished up their dairy foods unit with an exam and will begin learning about dairy management.  

Next week will be the wrap-up of all the classes I've been teaching as my time at Penns Manor comes to a close.  

Reflection

I really feel like there is a huge improvement in my structure in my classes.  While I'm still not perfect, as I become more comfortable in the flow of the classes, I remember to cover the objectives, I am ending class at an appropriate time etc.  These things that I plan for but generally forgot to do are becoming much more natural to incorporate.  It makes me feel better about my teaching.

Supervised Agricultural Visit

Entrepreneurial SAE - Equine Production

Ah man!! It's so exciting to see students who are out there challenging themselves to work on projects.  My students are blowing me away with how dedicated they are to their SAE's.

This week I had the great opportunity to visit with one of my students who is working with horses. They show all over the country!! What a great opportunity.

                                                   

                            

 

It was a great visit.  I got to see a great example of parent, student and teacher relationships.  This visit in particular was just to check in on the student and to make sure he was keeping up with his project.  It was exciting to see clear enthusiasm about the horses.

I'll certainly be rooting for him as he continues to compete throughout the year!

Student teaching Week 5

They Love Me!!

What an incredible week!!! Many people say that the first three weeks are the "honeymoon period".  Guess what, I feel like the honeymoon period of my student teaching experience is just beginning.  After four rather chaotic weeks of school cancellations, snow days, noon dismissals, crazy schedules etc.  my students have finally been around me enough that they openly claim "SHE'S AWESOME!".  

This week has made me feel good to be a teacher.  My students are finally beginning to catch onto my style of teaching and are coming to class more energetic than the first day I walked in.  It's certainly encouraging.  

What Happened this Week.

So many awesome adventures happened this week.  Here's a quick list:

~ Appropriate Technology  by Dr. Dennis Buffington (Guest Speaker) 

~ How a Biodigestor Works by Brookside Dairy (Field Trip)

~ Introduction to Mopan Technical High School

~ Making feta cheese from start to finish! 

~ Making yogurt from raw milk

~ Filling a greenhouse with over 200 plants!  (And that's just the beginning)

~ Pesticide Toxicity & Health

~ Wiring complex systems 

~ Assembling a small gas engine.

Please enjoy a few pictures from this week.  :D

Planting in the Greenhouse

                                     

                                               Filling the Pots with Soil

                         

                   

Making Cheese

And we wait...

Dr. Buffington

Can you tell this has been awesome!?!

Reflection:
I was very pleased with my teaching this week.  I was challenged in multiple ways but nothing that I wasn't able to overcome.  There were several proud moments that I had this week.  As an example proud moment, I had one student who was being particularly difficult by acting rude, smart, leading the others on, egging the other students, trying to be a class clown but was unsuccessful etc.  Well, I was able to turn this students goofiness into a really cool interest approach for pesticide toxicity & health.

We sticky noted him with all the pesticide poisoning symptoms where we would find it on the body.
Oh it was great!! I no longer have problems with him in my classes.  But he does volunteer quite frequently now.

As I think through the lessons that I taught this week, I am pretty excited to see some of my lessons becoming more inquiry and requiring my students to think through all of the content.  It's been a struggle but it's working.  I certainly am excited to see the strategies working.

What's in it for next week?
Introduction to Agriculture
~ The Design of a biodigestor
~ Creating a profile on Mopan Technical

Animal & Veterinary Science
~ Dairy Foods Unit Exam...Duh, Duh, Duh (did they learn the material?)
~ Dairy Feeds
~ Dairy Management
~ Dairy Health

Power Systems/Power Technology
~  Continuing to rebuild engines and wiring electrical systems

Plant and Soil Science
~ Pesticide Safety

FFA WEEK!!!!!!!
My students are super duper excited to rev up some energy for promoting the FFA!!  Oh there is so much in store!  I'm looking forward to it.