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........

Welding is done

This past week I finished up my welding and brazing units. Honestly, I am glad that that is done. Looking back on it there is a bunch that I would change. Starting off by the timing. When I first started this unit, I started off by just doing welding. A week after that I started brazing. This then at the end created a hold up for the brazing machines. If I would have started them both at the same time then I may have been able to stay on schedule and not rush the students at the end. After talking about how the unit went with my corp teacher we both had the same idea. Also for the brazing projects for the students, I was to lenient with what their projects could be. I told the students that they could come up with their own projects that had to include 5 pieces. If we did not have the pieces here at school then they had to provide their own. Well lets just say, I had about half the students want to do something with horseshoes. By the end of the unit, I decided that if I were to ever do this again, I will give them choices and they will have to use what I have available in the shop.This will also ensure that I will stay on time.

On a different note, how do you get the attention and keep that attention of students without yelling? This was the question of the night on Tuesday. I had a hard time keeping the attention of my students at the end of the day when all other FFA members were coming in to get ready to go to a speaking contest. I tried the whole "If you can hear me then yell, I" This worked for a few minutes then the students started to talk again. I yelled at them then felt bad afterwards. I do not want to be the teacher that yells. Also, if I become someone who yells all the time then the students will just tune me out. This is something that I need to work on. Keeping the attention of students who do not care is hard. Some days I am not as hard on them for talking and others I am. This needs to stay the same, I know.

By the time today hit, I began feeling better about my attitude and overall  reaction to students.

Time for change

Some may say that the relationship I have with my students is not good. To me this is wrong. Yes, I have to admit that there is a certain number of students that push my buttons and in return they receive smart answers back. However, when you are asked to go to the shop and finish your projects and you tell me that you do not want to then my response is well it is your grade not mine. I am done giving them time. This is the last week I will be in the shop. It is time to move on and if they are not done then to bad.

Some say that I do not doing the planning that is needed to be done in order to be prepared. This may be right but this is not every day. With last week being the way it was with family crisis I feel that I did fine. For example, my veterinary science class I had a great lesson planned about feed labels/bags along with rations. Lets go back, last week they class was not acting like they were involved or having fun. Therefore, I made them write down how they would like to learn information in the class. I got a wide range of information from having students take their own notes to more activities with food. I took that information and had a lesson where students took the notes by what they thought was important and then had an activity with food. At the end of the lesson, I had students tell me that they liked this lesson a lot. Now going back to the planning aspect. I did have a great lesson planned but ran out of stuff. Therefore, I started students on the nutrition project. Yea, I did not have the information printed off for the students but with class I did not worry about that. I feel that being able to have students start the project was better than having them sit around and do nothing.

After reflection on this past week change is due. Yes I do need to prepare more and think of more activities. Time will be my friend on doing this. Change is not going to happen overnight but it will.

Short week done

This week was a short one. We only had students Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.  On Tuesday, I worked on updating my lesson plans and planning for the rest of the week.

Wednesday

I started off by thinking I was going to be observed but once again due to the weather it did not happen. All classes went well except for my freshman class where I had 3 students once again not dressed to work in the shop. I made them write a two page paper in welding careers. This was not taken well by the students but oh well maybe it will teach them.

Thursday

I had a sub in for Mrs. Fry. All classes went great. I also had my freshman class that gave my sub problems last Wednesday.  I started off by asking them how they think it went on Wednesday. All at once the students started to complain about the book work they had to do. I explained that the sub was doing what I told her to do. Therefore, they need to complain to me and not her.  I told them that I better not hear this happening again. I then made them do the book work that they were to do then.

Friday

Once again I had a sub for Mrs. Fry. This was one of my best days. My veterinary science class was my task of the day.  I graded their test that I gave on Wednesday and had a range from 54% to 93%. I decided to let the students take a different test over again due to me not knowing if it was my teaching or them not studying.  The students were happy about this. 
Ag Foundations was great. Everyone was prepared and mostly everyone has their shop projects done.

What a week

This past week was easy but crazy at the same time. I started off by picking up a new class, building construction. Now I am at a full load. I am teaching electricity now which is not a strong point for me. It is taking a lot more on my end to be prepared to show the students the skill set that is needed. To tell you the truth I still do not completely understand it which is making it that much more harder.

Once again ag foundations is testings my limits. This week in the shop has gone better but I am still have trouble with students not coming to class wearing the right type of clothing. Section A has one girl that is never prepared so I made her do a chapter out of the book. Then to top it off on Tuesday, I had 5 girls from Section B not prepared. I made them do research and then write a paper on different types of welding. While they were in the classroom they were complaining and asked my corp teacher since she was in charge if she could make me not make them do this. To my surprise, she told them that it was her idea. That made them be quiet.

Wednesday, I was gone so I had a sub come in. All my classes handled this well except for the ag foundations. They watched the movie and did the worksheet with it then when it came time for them to read a chapter and do the questions they started to complain calling it busy work. Needless to say when I got back to school at the end of the day and the sub told me what they said and how they acted I was pissed. I have decided to confront the students about this and they are still going to have to do the book work just to show them that it was to be done and it was not busy work.

Hopefully this week is better..........

1/3 of the way done

The is past week was crazy. Between picking up my next to last class and the snow, I felt like a chicken with my head cut off. The worst was my ag foundations class. Like always this is my freshman. On Thursday things were getting out of hand. I have had them in the shop working in welding and brazing for the past week and a half and needed to change some things that way I had order. So I decided to have stations. While trying to figure out what student needed to be at what station, I kinda left lose. Meaning that when I have 20 students talking to me while I am asking one student something else I screamed. "I told every one to be quiet. I can not talk to or listen to 20 people at one time or be in 2 places at once. Either you all sit down and be quiet or we are not going into the shop." This lasted for about 5 minutes, which was all I needed before I sent them to the shop. Thinks seemed to go a lot better and students were actually getting signed off on their work.

Thursday night and Friday I had the chance to go to State College for the FFA Record Book Judging. I have heard many things about this event due to my father being there but was not sure what I was getting myself into. Overall it was a great experience. It really gave me an inside look to what judges are looking for when books are filled out.

Saturday and Sunday I went to the ACES convention with my FFA chapter. Here students were split into groups to go to different workshops and I went to all the teacher workshops. I learned some important information with AET and AgCN. This trip was interesting at times as well. It was nice seeing some of my cohort and catch up but it also gave me a chance to get to know 7 of my freshman. I was able to communicate with some better especially ones that I get attitude from in class.

Hopefully next week will have more interesting fun stories to share. Till then...................

Its getting REAL

This week was a crazy week. I picked up two classes this week taking my total to 3 of the 4. All is going well besides trying to get students to take notes and pay attention.

Veterinary Science 

         This class should be the easiest, so I thought. I mean, I have a degree as a veterinary technician and have worked in the field for 4 years. However, teaching the information so that the students understand it is hard. I started off by teaching about directional terms and planes. This by far is my worst area of understanding. I think it is for the fact that we do not use this terminology in the vet field very much. My first lesson was a flop. I gave the students the definitions and then had them fill in a drawing. None of them understood it. So how do I fix that?  After getting back to my apartment, I vented to my roommate and we bounced ideas off of each other. While at Wal-Mart that night, he came up with a great idea (really, he took my idea and made it better). I bought a giant stuffed bear, sewing pins and some ribbon. The next day in class, I retaught the information and had some extra worksheets that the students filled out. Then I started them on a gummy bear dissection lab. While they were dissecting the gummy bears, I took the giant bear around and had them pin the labels for the terms right on the bear so that they were able to see it in a more real life situation. I already took the ribbon and tied it around the bear for the planes, the students had to label the planes and then the other body terms. At the end of the lab, I asked the students if the way that I presented the information was better and if they understood it. To my surprise I got all yes's.



     At the beginning of class, for my bellwork, I give the students 3-4 prefixes commonly used in veterinary clinics. Since I had some time remaining in the class on Wednesday, I came up with an idea. I remember when I was in school trying to learn all of this terminology, my roommates and I would come up with fun and weird ways to remember what the words meant. So why not have the students do the same thing?  I asked the students to think of a game or way to remember the prefixes and write it down. I was surprised with the ideas they came up with. For example, I have a group making a memory game, a jeopardy game and one group even took the spoons game and made it fit for this. I am planning on using these games as reviews on Tuesday's and Thursday's for a break between sections.

      One thing in this class that made me say "WOW this is getting real" is when Mrs. Fry came to me and said that I really taught a student something. One of the prefixes that I went over that day was DE which means without, lack of. This students was finally able to understand what de-caf meant on coffee cans.

Ag Leadership

      Last week I was able to be part of the Selinsgrove FFA meeting and wow things are crazy there. The officers were not organized and the members did not act appropriately. This week in ag leadership, Mrs. Fry and I are teaching the students about Parliamentary procedure. So we started off talking about why parli pro is used and the values of it. One of the activities in the book that we are using has the students brainstorm ways that they could make meetings better. My ag leadership class consist of all the officers so why not use this to our advantage. The students were able to talk about why their meetings do not go like they should. The next day I took the ideas that they came up with and we spent the first half of the class talking about how to fix things. We came up with the officers meeting the day of or the day before the meeting to get final details, the officers are going to spread through-out the room in order to create some order in the room, and the secretary is also going to provide a sheet with dates of events along with how many points said events are worth. If all goes well, I do believe that this will make the meetings better along with getting better participation in FFA events.

Ag Foundations

    What can I say about this class. One section is great, the other I am ready to scream (even no I do not want to be the teacher that screams at her students). I covered brazing safety and set-up this week. With my notes sheet, the students had to write more than normal only because I thought this was very important information that dealt with very deadly equipment. I had one student complain about having to write so much. My reply was that if I just gave them the notes and did not have them write anything then they would not learn it due to not even looking at the packet. After he tried to tell me that I was wrong, Mrs. Fry spoke up and said that I was right (feels good to have the back up from my corp. teacher). I do believe that I possible scared the crap out of some of the students this week, but I feel that it is needed in order to ensure safety in the shop.

    After students were done taking notes, I took them to the shop to show them how to light the torch. It is bad enough having my corp teacher there watching but having the students in the other ag class that are taking welding 2 is even more nerve wracking. When we first got in the shop they all stopped working and came over to watch me demonstrate. After having to tell them 3 times to go back to work and stop watching me they finally left. Today, however, I was fine with them watching. I even had one right behind me helping me along.


This week has been a great week overall. I can not wait to pick up my last class sometime next week. However, I am scared to teach that class as well. I am starting by teaching 3-4 weeks of electricity and I am really bad at this stuff. I was able to sit down with Mrs. Fry today and have her explain some things to me and give me the 5 rules that she follows that made things make more sense to me.

I will keep you posted on how this goes. Until next time....................

Week 1 is under my belt

Monday

                Can I just say how irritated I was that we had school and no one else did. It was quite depressing that I was receiving snap chats from my cohort about in-service days and tomorrow being their first day. I started off right away. I have 4 class on the odd days and 3 class on even days.

                Building Construction class is going to be tough. I have a total of seven students who do not look like the type of students who would pick a class to do building in.

                Veterinary science class is going to be fun. I have about 15 students in my class. Students show up to class but have lunch first. While standing in the classroom going over resources, a life skills teacher aid came in and asked where he should sit. I explained that we had lunch first, so he left. I then relayed the information to my corp teacher, stating that we have life skills students in our class. We were both kind of worried about how that was going to work. Veterinary Science classes are very science based and is not really easy to teach to students will special needs. When class finally did start, the life skills student (joe) was late to class. His aid sat in the back of the room while Joe sat up front. To me this makes no sense. An aid is there to help the student take notes and be part of the class. How is that to happen if you sit on the complete opposite ends of the class? However, Joe did very well in class, he even answered most questions.

                Ag Foundations, what is there to say. I had to chance to observe these students plenty of times before. I came into this class with the mindset that by the end of the day I may want to quit teaching. I have two sections of this class, all freshman. This is the class that I started off teaching right away. To top that off, I have to teach welding. I know from prior experience that I may not be the best welder but I know how to teach it.

                I was sure that I had enough content to last for 90 minutes when I started the day, however, during prep, I showed my corp teacher what I had and was told that is not enough. This is going to be the hardest thing for me this semester. I was able to gather enough resources by the time class started. We started off by going over my expectations and general safety rules. I then sent the students into the shop to do a scavenger hunt of safety equipment. After the hunt, students returned to the classroom to take a practice safety test. I then started to lecture on basic welding safety and types of welding.

                Like stated before, I knew that this would be a tough class. All but 4 students were not paying attention. It took me 30 minutes to get over 10 slides of information. I was always making sure that they were coping the notes. It got to the point where the three girls in the front of the class were complaining about how long it was taking and telling me to just tell the rest of the class to “shut up”. At this time there was 30 minutes of the class left. I decided to stop teaching and give them time to work on their speeches. Once again, I had a fight on my hands. Some students tried to tell me that they were done or that they are working on their speech at home. I gave them the benefit of the doubt and told them to work on updating AET. However, has time went on the done students started to ask me questions about topics, which just proved to me that they were not done and have not even started working on it yet.

                I have got my hands full with my freshman class this semester, but after observing the other classes, I have a feeling that I am going to be fine with them.

Tuesday

                Today I get to play sub. I was given instructions on what each class is to do. After reading the instructions, I felt this is stupid. I can teach the students the information needed so that they do not fall behind but instead I have to assign them book work.

                Overall today was very boring. The one class that I was able to have some fun in was my Ag Leadership class which consists of mostly the officer team. We got all the records books ready to go for the contest that was to be tonight, however, because of the snow it got postponed to Thursday after school.

                We had an early dismissal today. Sorry there is not more to report.

Wednesday

                Starting off with a 2 hour delay made things a little bit easier. Once again I observed the building construction and veterinary science. I once again taught Ag foundations welding. On problem though is that I am going to be 2 days ahead in this section due to not having the other section yesterday. In order to not get to far ahead I thought of the cheese and crackers idea.

                I started the class off by having students write the bellwork and objectives on the boards. I also passed out a paper for students to write the bellwork/question of the day on along with the ticket out. It took some time to explain how to use this sheet. As the students were doing the bellwork, a few of them asked me what PPE is. Trying to control my frustration, I asked them where their notes are at from Monday? I had to repeat the fact that we went over this stuff on Monday about 5 times.

                After the bellwork was taken care off, I finished the powerpoint with different weld joints and some other terminology. Once again I was getting pretty frustrated with the students. It got to one point where I told the kids that if the talking did not stop I would do a seat change. That got them to be quiet for a couple of minutes then they started to talk again. Once I was finished with the powerpoint, I had the students line up according to birthday’s then count off.

                Once in groups, I used an interest approach that Billy did in lab. We used cheese and crackers for the students to learn how to make a bead and then how to make certain joints. They students had 25 minutes to do this. It went over a lot better than I thought it would. All students were able to make all the joints. At the end of class, I had them make a 2 inch bead using both the half moon and circle method. The beads then were compared to each other and my corp teacher judged them. I also had her go over why she picked the ones she did.

                Overall, my day was not bad. I just have to learn how to deal with my freshman class.

Thursday

                Started off the day on time. The morning was pretty quiet. I did have my Ag Leadership class today. We worked on speeches and getting things ready for the open gym night we are hosting tomorrow night.

                Today I have the second section of freshman for ag foundations. This class, from observation time, is worse than the first section is. I had a plan to go into this class giving the students new seats right off the bat instead of waiting to see how they will act. Once the new seats were given, after some fighting, I was able to keep the attention of the students. I had a shorter period today of only 50 minutes and had to put two lessons together so that I did not fall to far behind with them. I feel that I rushed through some of the lecture stuff but was able to cover everything in a good way.

                I once again did the cheese lab. This section did not behave as good as the other group. I had one student who instead of making joints just put a crap ton of cheese on the cracker. I ended up having to take the cheese from her. I ran out of time to do a lesson review with this class but I will learn from my mistakes.

Friday

                For my ag foundations class today, I gave them new seats. Not the best response from the students but it will work out. After giving the new seats I had the students update their AET projects and then I gave them a safety quiz. This was not what I thought it would be. The students made the questions harder than they needed to be. I told the students they could miss 2 questions and still be able to go in the shop. I had 10 of the 15 pass it. After giving the test, students then were introduced to the brazing project that they will have to do for a grade in this class. I showed them pictures then gave them the requirements. I then explained that since I only have four welding stations that I will take 3-4 students at time in the shop and the rest will have to research what project they want to make and come up with a bill of materials.

                The students that I had in the shop with me were a mixture of kids that were excited and ones that were scared to death. I stared off by showing the students how to set up the machines and then showing how to strike an arch and how to make a bead. I then had them each set up their machine. I started one student at a time and helped them make an arc and bead. I started by having the students cover, and I started the arc for them. Once I had the arc done, I let go of the electrode holder and just stood there and watched while keeping my hands close. All students were able to make a pretty good bead.

                After class left out, I was able to attend/supervise an FFA meeting. This was weird at first, but after watching the meeting it has showed me that I have a lot to teach my officer team about Parliamentary Procedure.

                Tonight is the first FFA activity that I get to attend. Tonight is open gym night.  Hope everything goes well.

                Overall this week was great, I cant wait for next.