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....................