Looking back, Is it really over?

What happen to my way of thinking?

The process of picking where I would student teach was hard. I needed to make sure that where I taught at I would gain the best training possible. It was also nerve wracking due to having to compete with other student teachers. Luckily, life and God gave me a chance and I was placed at Selinsgrove Area High School with Mrs. Valerie Fry. Selinsgrove Area High School has a two teacher Agricultural Program consisting of a mixture of students ranging from your typical agricultural farm raised students to students who have never seen livestock or stepped foot on a farm. I knew that I was in for a rough road ahead due to the background of students and the length of the classes which are 86 minutes long.

Starting off, I was well prepared. Not because of the three weeks of lessons that I prepared before Christmas break but because I was excited to be able to share my knowledge with my students. The semester started off great from the rapport with my students to the content being taught. Then as time went on I started to go downhill. I started to not be as prepared and then was getting to the point of being done with this experience and thinking that I just want to have my own classroom where I could do things my way.

However, looking back, I am glad that I was able to have this experience and be at Selinsgrove. I came to the realization that teaching is what I want to do but the best type of class I would love is Veterinary Science. I had a blast teaching the wide variety of classes but my best was Veterinary Science. Here, I was able to share my experience working in a veterinary hospital with the class to provide the need to know content.

The other classes, like stated before, were great. I liked better being in the shop with the students. Here I was able to show my skills and then help them master theirs. One realization that I learned was I am better at teaching welding then doing it. I also learned how to make the amount of equipment work best for the class size.

Overall, student teaching as given me the insight to what type of teacher I will be. It also told me that this is the right calling for me. Being a teacher, I am able to provide my knowledge base to the students and then help them find their calling that God has for them.

If I were to change anything about my experience, I would have made the best of it. At times, I looked at it as I do not need to plan, I know what I am talking about. However, I was proven wrong. Planning is a must and always plan for more than what is needed. 

Finishing Strong

This best week has been great. I am finishing teaching Veterinary Science. The students are sad to see me go and I am sad to leave them. I finished off the unit of office management by talking about medical records and taking inventory. I had the students start filling out a treatment sheet but would have them put information in the wrong spot (on purpose). When they had to change their work, most of them would just scribble out the words. I then used this as a learning experience, and took that time to explain how to fix mistakes in the records in order for the records to hold up in class. This went over really well. Today in class we are going to take a quiz, then I am giving the students a survey on my teaching. I am hoping that they are honest with me and they will give me good feedback.

Ag foundations has also been going good this week. I am finishing up teaching the green unit. Instead of standing in front of the class, I decided to let the students research the different industries and then give a presentation to the class. I made it so that the notes were due to me last week and then this week is presentations. To my surprise the groups that went yesterday were great. I really liked the activities that they came up with. Today 3 more groups are going and then I have a master gardener coming to talk about weed control using mulch for my community based unit of instruction.

We also had our FFA banquet this week. I was not involved in a lot of the planning due to teaching but was there when needed. I showed up to the banquet with all thoughts of just sitting there and watching, however before it started one of the students came to me and said "I have no clue what I am doing". I decided to sit with the students to make sure everyone went on stage when they were to. Then to my surprise, I was called up. (thank goodness I was dressed in a dress) To be honest, I do not remember what was said about me due to being in shock that I was actually called up.  It felt great to be named.

Next week will be my last week. I am finishing presentations in Ag Foundations and then helping judge Regional Public Speaking on Thursday.

You are a rock star

This past week was great. I was observed again on Wednesday not only by my university supervisor but by a fellow student teacher. I started off the day stressing out due to nothing going as it should. I was late getting to school and then realized that my lesson plan for Veterinary Science did not save like it should have so I had to make a new one. Then my computer crashed on me. The only thing going through my head was great this is not how I want my day to go.

However, I started to teach second block kinda slow. With these students it is a hit or miss on weather or not they interact. I have 3 senior girls in the back that carry the class. If they are interacting then the class goes good if not then it is a dud. Therefore, to be honest, I warned the class that I was being observed and asked that they interact today. To my surprise things went great. It was an ag leadership class, so I did not have much content but was able to get a mission and vision statement done for the FFA chapter.

Next is veterinary science. Wow is all I can say. I brought in a guest speaker to say. I had Boigie, a little dog come and help me demonstrate how to do TPR's on dogs. I then had the class show how to restrain for blood draws. This was by far my best class this semester.

What made my week the best was when I saw my professor from Penn State on Thursday night, he said that I was a rock star. No one understands what it feels like to hear someone call you a rock star like I do.

On Friday, I observed a student teacher. I was not as impressed as I was expecting. She had shorter periods then me so I was expecting things to go a lot quicker. However, it did not seem like it. The first class taught was good, beside I had to call the kettle black and tell her that she should have used her lesson plan. The second class she taught was okay. I would have liked to see her do a little bit of a review before sending kids to the shop. Her last class was wildlife. Here she gave a quiz that lasted about 15 minutes, therefore the students had 15-20 minutes to do nothing.

However, she did do good things as well. She had great rapport with the students and was able to cover everything that was needed.

I have 2 more weeks of teaching and then am done. Can not wait.

The countdown is beginning

With only 3 more weeks to go, I am relieved. I am through the honeymoon stage with all of my class. This week, I cut back to only 3 classes instead of 4. I also have been even more stressed through the whole week, with the majority of that stress coming from my last class of the day. I bet you can guess who it is. That's right Ag Foundations with the freshman. It got to the point that one day after school, I said to my cop. teacher, that "I strongly dislike this class. I just keep telling myself that if these were my real students they would not act like this. They would know from the beginning how to act. Also they would know what it is like to have a real teacher." These students have gone through 4 teachers this year counting me. But I guess that is what happens when you have a baby before school starts. I have already talked to my cop. teacher about all of this and she kind of agrees with me. However, one suggestion she had was that when I started, I should not have been so easy with them. I should have started hard then lessened (yes, I know, I was told this before).

While still talking about the freshman, my action based research is in this class. The students have been complaining about the amount of notes they have to write. I replied back that if I just gave them the notes and they did not have to write them down then they would not take the time to go back and look at the notes. I stated that they would all do bad on the test. Well, guess what. I lessened the amount of notes that had to be handwritten - amount varied depending on lesson- and gave a test today. After all students sounding surprised that there was a test, I had to nicely state that this has been on the board since Monday and that we played a review game on Wednesday (which half did not pay attention to). Complaints came from everyone. I then stated that if you paid attention during the game then you would do great because every single question, I asked during the game is on the test. Well, half of the questions were not filled out and therefore, I do not think anyone got over an 75% on the test. But, what do I do? Do I give them a new test and in a way reward them for not studying and relooking at their notes or do I leave the grades as is? This is just goes to prove that my initial thought about note taking was right and students need to write information down in order to learn it.

Another interesting thing this week was finishing my unit on parasitology. On Thursday, I did another lab dealing with real stool this time. I had 4 stations set up. At each station, students were to either make a fecal smear, fecal centrifuge or fecal float and then look at it. I brought in dog stool from my dog at home. Since I am a veterinary technician, I have all my dogs on preventives for all internal parasites, so I was 100% positive that no parasites would be found. To my surprise, I was wrong. The first group to look at their smear, found whipworm eggs, and then it continued onto looking at the floats where eggs were present as well. I immediately made students disinfect everything that they possible could have touched. I do think that next time I do this I am going to have the stool checked at the veterinary before bringing it to school. However, I thought that it was a great thing for the kids to experience. I mean how many high school students can diagnosis a dog with whipworms.

Stimulated Stool Project

This past week while teaching veterinary science about parasites I had to find a way to teach how to make a fecal smear without using real stool. While talking about what to do with my cop. teacher I blurted out pudding. I decided to make chocolate pudding with sugar crystals in it. I brought it to class in a glass bowl. Right away the students were able to see the crystals in it. I started off by going over gross examination. Students then took some of the pudding and made a fecal smear. I let the students try to make the smear first without telling them how. After awhile, I had to show them how to do it. I explained how you want a small amount that way you can see through it with the microscope. Students were then able to see the crystals under the scope.

After the activity was done, I asked the students how they would like to do it differently next time. I was given suggestions like: have different colors of pudding to represent different problems. Have spaghetti and rice in the pudding. Over all though the students liked this idea. I am going to write it up and post to communities of practices.

Not much to report from last week

Last week was a very calm week at school. I am working on building a birdhouse planter box in building construction which is taking forever. AG leadership we are doing the teach ag essay contest and in Ag Foundations we are learning about soil.

Teach Ag Essay Contest is a great way for students to show their love of agriculture with others. I made this an assignment in my Ag Leadership class. Students were to have their lesson plans to me by last Friday and they had to teach their lesson by today. I had a wide range of lessons from who wants to be an ag teacher to care of rabbits and goats. For the most part the students were prepared for their lesson but I did have two that did the bare minimal. A lesson on endangered species lasted only 15 minutes (should have been 45) and then the who wants to be an ag teacher lasted almost 1.5 hours. He did not have a lot planned so he took long going through things and then was adding stuff as he went. As they went through their lessons, I had a copy of their plans and was writing in what they added or what the times were for each section. This helped them understand why their lesson went the way it did.

Sorry not more to report. Quiet week in the 'grove.

Starting to look up

I must say writing a blog every week is great. However, I am sure my readers are getting tired of reading about my freshman. But what can I say. The other only other class that pushes bottoms is my building construction class. I only have 5 students that are all boys. This past week we started the woodworking unit. I started class off by the students drawing me a plan of a tissue box. This took longer than I thought. I was under the thought that all but one students has already taken man tech before so they should know how to draw and read a plan. This is not true. None of them drew or made a project off of a plan. I feel that I could have been better prepared to teach this if I went in thinking that the students know nothing. On Wednesday, the students started in the shop on cutting the wood. Thursday when I came back the students were still cutting wood. I was pleased to see that they were using their plans. However, come Friday, I called in sick and had Mrs. Fry have the students finishing cutting their projects out thinking that they would finish. Well later that day, I received a text from Mrs. Fry with a complete project cut out but to my surprise it was hers. She states that the boys complained saying they did not have enough time to cut it all. So she proved them wrong and in one block was able to cut all pieces out.

Now back to my starting statement about how you all may be tired of hearing about my freshman but here goes. I started a new unit on plant science and was struggling. My first lesson was an introduction of how plants are important. I had the students go to the board and write why they thought plants were important. Then sent a student to the office. Backing up, Joe was kicked out of school for 10 days due to having weapons on campus. Last Friday was his first day back. He was starting to swear in class and I warned him about it and then when asked to go to the board with the class he jumped up and started to shot "marijuana, I like that stuff". I was in the middle of a sentence to a student and stopped looked at Joe and said "Go to the office" To my surprise there was no fighting. He left and did not come back at all during that block. After that when I have Joe in my class he sits there and does not talk out or cause anymore trouble. Check one for me!

Along with dealing with Joe's problems, I was a bit disappointed in my plant science this week. I was to do a lesson on the plant parts and had a hard time of coming up with how to make it not so "childish". This did not happen. I am going to bring this lesson with me to our meeting on Friday and see if anyone can help me out.

Till next time........