LifeKnowledge Lesson

So much teaching in the past two weeks!!! I believe I probably had the most dramatic change from micro teaching to my LikeKnowledge lesson in regards to demographics in the classroom. At Central Mountain I taught 9 senior boys. For my LikeKnowledge Lessons I taught two periods of 8th graders, the first one had 25 students and the second one had 17.

My lesson was on being prepared and planning effectively. I said when I picked this lesson out during the study night in Ferguson, this is pretty much the pot calling the kettle black, as I am not always the most prepared person. But, I made my copies, got my materials, read and re-read and re-re-read the lesson plan, and made a PowerPoint for the day. As I left my house at 5:20 in the morning I realized that I never asked if I would be able to use a PowerPoint while I was there, ( see this whole prepared thing) and thought that I would be okay since I remembered seeing smart boards and they typically have PowerPoint. Well, they have never used a PowerPoint in that room before so I wrote my slides on the board, and went along with my lesson plan.

I met the students at the door and handed them note cards that they could make into name cards on their desk so I would be able to call on individual students. I gave them my name and said that I would be student teaching there in the spring and started with the lesson by going over the objectives. I generally followed the lesson plan provided on LifeKnowledge and if you wish to see what I taught you can find it here on the link https://www.ffa.org/documents/learn/MS047.pdf. I do not feel like going through word for word what I did.

This class was huge with 25 students, probably the biggest I have taught by myself. There was also a very chatty and ants-in-his pants boy that was squirming in the back row. I called on him a lot for examples and also had to individually bring him back on task while I was walking around to see what the students were doing.There was also one point when the class was working together and was especially chatty, but it was time to move to another part of the lesson. I tried to get their attention once, but it didn't work so in my teacher voice I said "ONE, TWO, THREE, EYES ON ME" which was quite effective. One student repeated me under his breath and probably included an eye roll, but if they would have been paying attention I would not have to revert back to childish sayings. While this worked really well for me in this classroom, I feel that if I had tried that with the senior boys it would not have worked at all. This is where understanding your audience comes in.

The second class went much better than the first one. There were less students and I changed a lot of the things that did not work in the first class. I had the students read off the board and think more in depth about some of the activities that we were completing. The office kept calling kids to the office though while I was teaching and I was glad Mrs. B was there to respond to the voice coming from the ceiling.

There is a funny story from this class. I had the students write three ways to be prepared then I had them go around and initial each others reasons. When I was walking around the classroom and seeing what everyone was going one girl stopped me and asked if I would be mad that her initials are BS, I said "No, BS stands for Best Student right? So I really like your initials." She giggled at me and was like nooooo that's not what it stands for! I said ummm that is what I think it stands for, and I kept walking around the room. This kind of reminded me of our lab sessions because I say a lot of weird things when I am acting like a student, especially to Caleb.

Mrs. B completed a review on me by keeping tract of when my transitions were and completing a "glows" and "grows" for the things I did well and the things that I need to improve on. It was really nice to see how I changed my lesson from the first class to the second class.

For "grows"...

I need to make sure I have everyone's attention before giving directions
Clearly define "silently" for students
Don't turn my back on them when asking for a response
Make student helpers
Make everyone participate in class discussion
Countdown for transitions
Wait for students to listen.


"Glows"

Good wait time
Handled age group well
Got a student who never answers her to raise a hand and volunteer a response
Very willing to adapt as needed
Learned from one period to the next and adapting
Patience and understanding with students


I am glad that I completed my LifeKnowledge lesson so soon after the Central Mountain lessons because they went much better. I also felt more comfortable with this set of students since proximity control actually worked. I know that I have a lot to learn as I continue with this whole teaching business, but I am ready.

Micro Teaching

For these reflections just go with the flow and understand that my brain likes to jump around.... as you will surely be able to see...

Day 1:

Not satisfied. I had really awesome equipment with me, pants, boots, shirt, A WHOLE ENTIRE BACKPACK FULL OF FUN THINGS TO EXPLORE! And I just didn't do it how I pictured in my head. I have that problem sometimes when I don't follow my gut and always regret it. I had two different students come up and go through different sections of the pack and pull out all the equipment. When writing my lesson plan I envisioned them passing it around and really looking at it so everyone was engaged....but instead I just let him lay it on the table then I talked about it. People were interested but not truly engaged. I also read last night in the chapter 8 on classroom management that it is better to be strict then lighten up as you go because it is harder to become more strict as you so on. So today I tried to have fun with them but to also be strict and PROXIMITY CONTROL WAS NOT WORKING!! HELLO I AM BASICALLY STANDING ON YOU STOP TALKING!

AND I THOUGHT I LOST A STUDENT. Mrs. Rice observed me today and said there was about 30 seconds that my interest approach video ended and the students started talking.. but as I reflected on it on the drive home I realized that was when I thought I lost a student. One of the kids that had been in the front moved to the back of the room and I couldn't find him or remember where everyone else was sitting. So I was having a mental PANIC ATTACK and was about ready to run to Mrs. Rice and be like did a student leave? Did I really already lose a student? But then I found him a couple seats back... and I could get on with my lesson.

I was bad at timing. As I mentioned before I didn't the students engaged as I wanted to.. and I was moving really slowly at first, but then I checked the time and sped up to make sure I would cover everything, but then I went too fast and ran out of stuff so I did a choral response e-moment and reviewed the objectives and talked reviewed what we did today and what we will accomplish the rest of the week... so I DID TEACH UNTIL THE END OF THE BELL... it just happened a bit hap haphazardly.

For the last rant of the day, I don't know how to work macs.. I was confused about how to find my youtube video that I had pulled up before class. I also uploaded my powerpoint on two jumpdrives to be extra prepared.. but I uploaded Wednesdays powerpoint on one and Tuesdays on another.. and of course I would put the Wednesday one in first by accident, causing me to have a mini heart attack before checking my other jump drive. HEART ATTACKS FOR DAYS!

BUT. WE, THE INDIVIDUALS AT PENN STATE HAVE A GROWTH MINDSET I need to take what I learned today and fix it tomorrow. I didn't have a BAD lesson, it just wasn't PERFECT. But, I am not PERFECT, but I can IMPROVE. Which, I WILL DO TOMORROW.



Day 2:

Today went better than yesterday. We had a car of failures. I ran out of printing pages and only had 40 cents on me elion account to get more pages so Quinn thankfully let me use her pages but I forgot to switch it to only print on one ride for the pictures... which led me to have to change my instructions for the students. Which I need to work on my clarity of instructions.

I also need to not be passive. Passive, according to dictionary.com is "not reacting visibly to something that might be expected to produce a manifestations of an emotion or feeling." This is something I really need to work on because I want my students to know that I care about them. I know that we are only working with these students for three days, but I still care about them as human beings. It is also kind of scary that so many people tell me that I don't show emotion. This summer when I worked at the FACE youth conference with Farm Bureau, my group was working on a project and a girl asked me if I was even having any fun, and I told her I was having a blast and that I was really happy I was not in the office for a week and she told me that my face looked like I didn't want to be there... my response was that this is just my relaxed face. I'm going to have to work hard to show my students in the spring that I care about them, especially the first couple weeks until they can use to me and will be able to see that through my actions.

Another thing that this day has taught me is to really think about the audience that I am talking to. A lot of my information is too basic and it is hard to keep the students engaged since it is below them. They are a group of intelligent senior boys and need to be treated as such. I picked such an awesome and exciting topic for my micro teaching, but I am not utilizing it to its potential.

Today was a good lesson. Tomorrow will be better.


Day 3:

I had some cool bell work and interest approach that really got their attention! But then it went down hill and I lost their attention. As they walked in the door, I handed them note cards that had a definition that they needed to match on the board with tape. It really made them think individually and also work as a group to figure out what matched. After everyone had put their definition beside their term, I made all the students surround me and we looked to see if everything was correct. They did their too cool for school act since they didn't want to stand up since they just sat down, but I made them get up and their teacher said they were engaged.

Next I wanted to use a teaching strategy that we used during the inquiry based instruction at National FFA Convention. I wanted them to read the article individually and highlight what they thought was important. After they were done I wanted them to talk to their partner and compare what they highlighted. And thirdly, I wanted them to share with the class what they talked about. This is where I lost them. They didn't have the depth of discussion that I wanted them to, and they started to have side conversations. I wanted to jump into the class discussion to cut the side talk off and they got the points out of it that I wanted them too but it that spark I was looking for just wasn't there.

When we were going over the review Mr. May said that they needed a little more structure for that. They needed to have some questions that they should look for during the reading or have a little more instruction and structure to the reading. They don't have behavior issues, they just had a lot of stuff to talk about with each other: cars, hunting and girls.

Inquiry Based Instruction

Phew. That went better than I thought!

For my inquiry based instruction my initial ideas kept getting shot down, as the teachers were pushing me to be more creative and use my resources on campus. I then started running around to everyone at my fraternity and was asking about ideas that they may have, since they have more concentrated areas of study. Denise Beam, a friend of mine who also works at the dairy barns, suggested using a colostremeter. I jumped on this idea because it sounded perfect since it used a scientific piece of equipment and would fit into my Animal Science unit for my 8th grade class.

To start the lesson I had them brainstorm ideas of things a newborn mammal would need. They had said things like nutrients, love, warmth, milk, ect. I then had them read an article about why calves need colostrum. After reading the article they participated in a think-pair-share and discussed together and as a class what was read in the article.

I had two milk jugs on the table as well as two test tubes and a colostremeter. I asked them which milk I should drink.  I gave that to them as their initial instruction and basically let them figure out how to use it on their own. I kept track of what they were saying on the board so I could reference it later.

When they were done figuring out which milk I should drink I had them go over their hypothesis and procedure. They figured out that they were measuring colostrum and that I should drink the regular milk instead of the milk full of colostrum that is intended for newborn calves. I asked how it related to the article that we read in the beginning of class and I reviewed the objectives of the day to make sure that they understood everything.

When I was writing my lesson plan I wanted everything to be mostly B and C on the chart of inquiry based instruction. This lesson is for an 8th grade class and I didn't want them to become frustrated. I wanted to have them think independently but also have some guidance when they needed it. I would do it like this until they were more comfortable with inquiry based instruction then I would focus it to be more student based.

As for my teaching mannerisms..... I need to learn how to smile!!!!! I have a problem with smiling in class especially when it is something new and I do not feel totally comfortable with the material. I literally learned how to use the colostremeter an hour before class and do not have a dairy background besides my high school agricultural classes. I researched it all weekend but I was still unsure of myself. I am sure that confidence will come with time.. but the least I could do is smile.. really need to work on that.

Overall, I am happy with how the inquiry lesson went. I know that there is always room for improvement, but it was a good first experience!

Double Entry Journals - Reading Strategy

The double entry journal is when you have a student fold a piece of paper in half length wise so they have two columns. On the one side, the student will write a phrase or sentence they they found interesting from the reading, as well as the page number. On the other side the students will write a personal response to what they found to be interesting. They will later be able to share what they found interesting and why, with the class. Here is the link for more information http://www.adlit.org/strategies/22091/ 


To make adaptations for the blog post I will be quoting the parts of the reading that I found interesting, then recording underneath why I found it to be interesting.

Myers and Warner " What is Inquiry Based Instruction"

"Teachers should constantly evaluate and adjust their teaching approaches to meet educational needs of their students and society."

• This is really true since we as teachers need to be constantly working to meet our students needs. By having different teaching approaches under our belt we are better able to cater to individual students needs and keep the class interesting rather than doing the same thing every day. 

Myers and Warner " Implementing Inquiry- Based Teaching Methods"

"Student ability determines how much assistance teachers will provide."

• It is important not to leave students in the dust if they need more assistance. It is also important to have a good idea of your students ability since if they get frustrated while trying to complete an inquiry based lesson it will turn them off from further experiences. It is important to start small and build them up.

"Teachers develop important questions for which they want students to research."

• It is important to be prepared so there is not as much student frustration.

"Encourage classroom discussion through process but refrain from giving the right answer."

• Inquiry based instruction is all about the students figuring out the answers! Not spoon feeding them!

Bell, Smetana, and Binns "Simplifying Inquiry"

"Students have to answer a research question though data analysis."

• Inquiry based instruction - INCORPORATING SCIENCE INTO THE CLASSROOM AND THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD. It is important that administrators can see how science is in the classroom. 

" Students should progress from lower levels to higher levels throughout the year."

• There are four different inquiry levels and to "train" students how function with inquiry based lessons it is important to start at the bottom levels and work higher as the semester goes on. 

Colburn "Inquiry Primer"

"Concrete thinkers have a great deal of difficulty developing an understanding of abstract concepts."

• MAKE SURE STUDENTS DO NOT HAVE A FIXED MINDSET! Have them develop a growth mindset so they will continue to learn forever. 

"Teach slowly- don't move on until you and the students are ready."

• Don't rush to finish everything on the lesson plan. If you and the students are not ready... don't move on!

Focus on Inquiry - Designing Inquiry Activities (Chapter 4)

"Taught with the focus on developing lifelong learners and critical thinkers."

• IMPORTANT

"Committed to student-centered learning."

• Can't go into inquiry based instruction half butt.

"Assessment should be an ongoing process rather than isolated events."

• Important to keep in mind. 

"Encourage students to feel competent and successful."

• Sometimes minor success are better than one big one as they keep positively rewarding students. 

As you can see, here I demonstrated the double entry journal reading strategy. It really helps the student to think about what they are learning and apply it to their own life which will help with understanding and retention. 

Evaluations

The topic this week is how to evaluate our students so we know that they are learning and that we are being effective teachers. One of my favorite quotes is "Some of us will do our jobs well and some of us will not, but we will be judged by only one thing -- the result." Vince Lombardi. By having evaluations it provides the teacher, the students, and the administration with the result. If there are bad grades maybe the teacher did a poor job in teaching the material or evaluating them based on objectives. If the students got a bad grade, a bad result, maybe they did not spend enough time preparing for the evaluation.

As a teacher I want to encourage my students to do a good job. I want them to learn the material and develop skills that will help them after high school. I liked how chapter 14, Evaluation of Learning, talked about affective assessments. In the case study it talked about two students, one that is really smart and good at tests and one that didn't do as well in school but was loved by her boss. I can relate to the second one, as I feel that while I made it by through high school and college, I am very bad at taking tests and translating what I learned onto the paper. At the same time, I never had any problem with authority figures, nor anyone that I worked under. While I personally typically despise tests, I do believe they serve a purpose and will provide me with results which are a necessity.

Thankfully, since I do dislike tests, there are many other forms of evaluation that I will utilize in the classroom. Examples including: concept maps, rubrics, check sheets, and portfolios to name a few. To make sure I have a balanced classroom and to cater to different types of learning styles my students may have, I am going to have a variety of ways to evaluate them and get results.

The readings this week provided a lot of good pointers to decrease student frustration and to provide clarity for them. It even included a website that has a lot of different resources for teachers. This one talks about making rubrics the correct way. This way they will know what they are getting evaluated on and can work on getting the result that they desire.

blogging out,

Jeanne

Problem Solving Lab - How can you change the situation?

Mellow rainy days for mellow thoughts. I thought that I had a decent lab today. I tried to be more enthusiastic and gave myself a pep-talk before my lesson. According to my reviews I did have better enthusiasm today but that it kind of died out towards the end of the lesson, but improvement is improvement and I will take it. My comment about the weather today though, is that for all of the presentations today the audience, while they were participating in the discussion, were pretty lack luster. They just didn't seem to have that much energy or to really be into the lessons. I blame part of it on the weather. On days like these where it is the middle of the week, its dreary out, and the room is hot... this is when the teacher has to work extra hard to keep their enthusiasm up and keep the students engaged. Most of the blame can go on myself and when the weather is not providing energy, I need to.

For my interest approach I showed a video of a restaurant in New York City that is using hydroponics on their roof to provide their restaurant with vegetables for the majority of the year. I then went into the situation that our class was going to work on figuring out today. I said that they cafeteria staff had approached me saying that they need some fresh vegetables to serve to the students at lunch. With the big health kick and it costing a lot to bring fresh vegetables rather than frozen ones... they needed a change and asked me for help. I told the class that after finding the video that I just showed them that I bet that we could help the nice cafeteria staff out. We then went into a discussion of how we would be able to do this with hydroponics. Our discussion traveled from supplies that we need, vegetables to plant, marketing plans, permission from the principal, superintendent and school board. I felt that we had a lot written down and that the students were really thinking about the task at hand. However, I felt that I led the discussion too much. I asked too many leading questions rather than leaving it more open to interpretation for the students. I feel that it could have been more student led rather than teacher led. I had written in my lesson plan that I was going to have a student write what their peers were saying on the board but I didn't follow through with that. I believe in the real classroom that I will since there will be more students and I will probably have a fidgety student anyways. 

My take away from my lab is to

1) Be exciting (especially if there are other factors getting students down)

2) Really know content knowledge ( I need to be more confident in myself and my teaching abilities and my knowledge)

3) Phrase questions in different ways to get different results ( more student interaction and thought rather than me leading them to the answer I am thinking of)

Keep being awesome and keep working on eating that elephant!

blogging out, 

Jeanne

Can our students solve world problems??

This weeks reading was based on teaching and utilizing peoples natural problem solving abilities for real life issues. To go into the importance of this reading, a couple of years ago I read, or heard on NPR, that NASA is having problems hiring new people to replace the ones retiring. Everyone that they interviewed had really impressive test scores and their resume looked really good, but when asked what they did for fun or if they took apart and rebuilt things when they were younger, the answer was no. These applicants that appeared qualified for the job, NASA didn't want. They wanted people who spent their time growing up being naturally curious about the things around them and completed hands on projects to break down and rebuild something. They wanted people who followed the natural learning process of problem solving.

What is this natural learning process of problem solving? According to Methods of Teaching Agriculture, chapter 4, the learning process has 6 steps.
1) Experiencing a proactive situation
2) Defining the problem - clarifying questions to be answered
3) Seeking data and information
4)Formulating possible solutions
5) Testing proposed solutions
6) Evaluating results

mihaelasharkova.wordpress.com 

These 6 steps are how people learn and problem solve in their daily lives. Sometimes this process takes a matter of seconds when recalling data and information that you already have. Such as, a problem of how to get to the grocery store and avoid traffic. A teachers job is to harness peoples natural ability and utilize their learning process to help them to solve problems in the classroom and get them to think critically.

According to the book it can be accomplished this way

1) Interest Approach - motivate students to learn, create that want/need/interest
2) Objectives to be achieved
3) Problems to be solved - questions to be answered
4) Problem Solution
5) Testing solutions through application
6) Evaluation of solutions (assessments)

Problem solving as mentioned above, is an important skill in the work place and something employers are really looking for. Problem based learning really focuses on providing new learning experiences, leading the students to new knowledge, and reinforcing existing knowledge, according to Problem-Solving Teaching in AG ED. As I am going to be student teaching in the spring, the chapter also says that teachers use problem based learning when encouraged by their professors and cooperating teacher. As being apart of the Penn State Agricultural Education department, I believe that we are being highly encouraged to teach this way.

Principles for teaching Problem Solving, stresses to teach problem solving skill in the context they will be used and to practice with a similar problem. This will prepare the students for different levels of solving problems. The reading also breaks problem solving down into three characteristics of problem solving.

1) Problem solving is cognitive but is inferred from behavior
2) Problem solving results in behavior that leads to a solution
3) Problem solving is a process that involves manipulation of or operations on previous knowledge

If we are able to tap into our students natural ability and teach them how to problem solve, they will be one step closer to their desired future career. Problem solving will also give them a skill to use inside and outside the classroom and will be beneficial for all. As a teacher, problem solving also creates that need to learn and desire which will make your class more relevant and enriching to young minds.