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.
Monday, March 31, 2014
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
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.
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.
Monday, March 17, 2014
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........
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........
Friday, March 7, 2014
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.
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.
Monday, March 3, 2014
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.
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.
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