The Rollercoaster Ride of Student Teaching

Throughout the entire 16 weeks of student teaching it has been a rollercoaster ride. I have had the best time of my entire four years of college in my internship. Starting out in January, I had no idea things would drastically change near the end of my internship. As we get ourselves strapped into our coaster car, think about this question. How do you stay mentally strong in a time of uncertainty?

Now that we are all strapped in on our coaster car, let us head up the first hill. Beginning of student teaching there was a lot of anxiousness in everything that I did. I was so nervous taking on classes that I knew relatively little about compared to my cooperating teacher. I prepared lessons and research as much as I could to be prepared enough to teach the content. Once I started to take over classes, I found my anxiousness start to disappear and I became more comfortable in teaching my students. After this first hill, I felt a sense of confidence in my teaching abilities. I am not the best teacher, but I could at least start to be more natural in the classroom and mechanics lab.

Uh oh! Now we have a loop-de-loop. Moving into taking on a full load of classes, I started to think, "How am I going to get all of my assignments, lesson planning, and content created?" Having six classes and five preps made it difficult to balance my work/personal life. Strategically planning out my week became a norm so I could still enjoy some personal time throughout the week. Coming out of the loop-de-loop, I realized my fears weren't as bad as I thought.

Ohh no!! Corkscrew! This challenge was by far the worst. Navigating remote online learning. Coming to the end of my internship, I had to figure out how in the world to teach skill-based mechanics courses through remote/online ways. I researched multiple discussion groups, NAAE CoP, and finding resources on my own to deliver good instruction.

After all the corkscrew of student teaching, I had some time to look back upon my entire internship and thought, "The entire ride of student teaching may look intimidating, but getting on the ride, taking each challenge one at a time you will have the thrill ride of your life." I enjoyed my internship, students, and colleagues. I will always look back on this experience as the oddest way to start my teaching career.

Regional PAAE Meeting: The Importance of Professional Organizations

I had attended the virtual Eastern Region PAAE meeting held on April 16th to participate in the recent updates within the PAAE organization. It is necessary to be present at these meetings so that you know what is happening in the professional organization you are a member of. 

Professional organizations are essential for teachers. As we move through our careers these organizations can assist us in fulfilling our needs as well as allowing us to give back to the younger generations stepping into the profession. Starting out my career, I see value in holding membership within the PAAE. They provide professional development opportunities for their members among other things to guide new teachers in the right direction.

As I wish I could have participated in this meeting in person, but due to the circumstances, I understand why we couldn't. Getting the chance to see the teachers that I will be working with throughout my career virtually was at least a positive aspect. Hearing the ideas/concerns that the eastern region ag teachers have, puts me in the perspective and mindset that I will need to have in the fall as I start my career at Solanco High School.

• Why do you participate in professional organizations?

Getting Creative

"Ideas can be life-changing. Sometimes all you need to open the door is just one more good idea" Jim Rohn. Sitting in a living room pondering about life, an idea had come to my mind. What do most living rooms have in them? A coffee table! 

In the course of a week, I have built, recorded, and edited videos for my students and future students to watch on how to build a coffee table. This project turned out to be a 5 part video series in which I wen through the entire process. The idea behind this project was to create something that is more personal for my students to watch and learn from rather than random YouTube videos. 

In this series, I touched on safety, common woodworking practices, and ideas to spark student interest. Moving forward from this idea that was quickly pulled together since my internship is nearly over, I plan to create better instructional videos for my students. These would include the following but not limited to; how to properly use specific tools, proper safety, poor safety, and actual project builds. 

It is amazing how one idea can cascade into bigger and better ideas to be used in the future. I am excited to see where my innovation leads me.

• What innovative things have you been doing for your students?
• How have those ideas helped your students?

Professional Development: How to be a Better Educator

Over the course of this week, I not only have prepared educational lessons/resources for my student but I also started to dive into studying for my Master Service Technician certification. The more that I have been studying, the more I have realized how individual professional development is important for educators.

As I work through Briggs and Stratton's Master Service Technician course, I have noticed how much I really did not know about small engines. Even though it is challenging, I believe that working through this course will serve my students better in the fall as I will be teaching a Power Machinery Technology course. 

An educator should have a wealth of knowledge on the subject material he/she is teaching their students. I believe having a specific professional development plan is imperative to serve your students the best as possible. Having a basic understanding of the material is good, but to move into a master teacher one must have a wealth content knowledge in their respective subject area. 

Beginning my teaching career as an Agricultural Mechanics teacher, I have realized that there is just as much science content knowledge in mechanics as there is in the Agricultural General and Ecological courses. I think the stereotypical view on Agricultural Mechanics being just wrench turning, arc striking, and woodcutting needs to change to reflect the science theories/ideals behind the physical laboratory work.

Moving into the 2020-2021 school year at Solanco High School, I plan to break the stereotypical view of Agricultural Mechanics. I want to show my students the science behind engine theory, metalworking, and woodworking. 

Understanding Remote Learning

"The pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty." - Winston Churchill. During this time of remote learning, there is an obvious difficulty in structuring remote learning for high school students. In navigating this concept this week I have been finding good resources for my students. 

Structuring Ag Mechanics

Since the majority of my classes, this semester has been agricultural mechanics, skill-based courses. Finding ways to teach hands-on courses is very difficult, but there are theory-based lessons that are useful. One resource that I found to be helpful is Miller Open Book. This resource provides online modules for welding students to gain content knowledge on SMAW, GMAW, Oxy-Fuel, and Metallurgy. Good welders should know the theory behind the practice/skill of welding to understand why it works and how it is effective. 

Ag Mechanics Science

For some people, it may be surprising to learn that there is a substantial amount of science behind agricultural mechanics. As I am preparing to teach new content to my welding students, I had realized I never taught them the science principles behind the process of melting two or more pieces of metal together. We will be doing a deep dive into the science applications of welding in order to identify the reasons welding certain metals together may be more than just striking an arc or squeezing the trigger on the GMAW welding gun. 

Questions

• How is each of your districts handling remote learning?
• What are your strategies for teaching hands-on courses remotely?

Welcoming a New Normal

"Being challenged in life is inevitable, being defeated is optional." - Roger Crawford. Over the past couple of weeks, we have been entering a new normal with preparing lessons online for our students. Never did I foresee anything like this during my student teaching internship. I am being challenged in a new way that will shape the rest of my career.

Moving through this new normal is not easy. This past week I had prepared online enrichment opportunities for my students that will be published next week. Finding resources wasn't difficult, but deciding how to frame it for my students was the challenging part. I wanted to be sure they understood what I wanted them to accomplish. Writing down instructions is so much harder than speaking and demonstrating the steps or procedures. 

I am hoping we can soon get back into the classroom. I am missing my students and the connections between my co-workers. 

Questions

• How are you handling this situation in your district?
• What advice do you have for beginning teachers entering this profession moving past this situation?

SAE, The Work-Based Learning of Ag Ed

The SAE component of Agricultural Education is an important aspect that gives students the work-based experience to develop skills that can be translated into a career after high school. My second SAE visit that I had gone on was a market dairy beef. She works with her animal daily to ensure it is ready for the fair. The visit had occurred at the student's home to weigh the dairy beef to determine its daily growth.

Prior to Visit
Before we went to the SAE site, we reviewed her record books on AET to see if they were up to date and accurate for the time of year. We checked both her journal entries and financial entries. 

Evaluation and Recommendations
We evaluated the weight of the dairy beef to see how much weight was gained since the previous visit. After a little math, we determined how much the daily gain was of the dairy beef. Once we finished weighing both her animals, Mr. Kalupson recommended keeping giving the dairy beef as much feed as possible to keep the daily gain high enough for the sale at the fair.

Overall Observation
I enjoyed watching and helping Mr. Kalupson complete this visit. I had learned a lot about how to use their scale as well as work with students in the unique setting of their supervisor on an out of school experience.

Runts the Matter?

After a week of uncertainty and stress of the unknown, we made through at Solanco. This week was one of the worst weeks I've had so far. Besides the obvious, I have had a hard time motivating myself to push through when we were uncertain of so many things. I know that it is not good to lose motivation over something like the coronavirus, but I struggled to motivate myself. 

Upbeat Update

In my Ag Business course this week I decided to try something new. I had put together a learning lab with runts candy. Through the activity, students were to practice accounting skills as well as learn the cost of merchandise sold theory. Students were broke into groups of 3 or 4 then given three ziplock bags that each had a different amount of runts in them. The bags were as follows; Jan. 1 Inventory (2/3 box of runts), Purchased Inventory (1/3 box of runts), and Merchandise Sold (empty). As they performed the steps in the activity, they were to keep track of how much total inventory they had and what was sold through the year. In the end, they had to calculate their total inventory on Dec. 31 and add in leftover inventory to see if the numbers matched. The students enjoyed the hands-on activity especially when they could finally eat the runts.

Questions

• How do you keep students focused during a time of turmoil and uncertainty?
• If you had to teach Ag Mechanics courses online, how would you go about that task?

Living the Dream

This week I feel like I started to get into the flow of being a teacher. Even though I am not a full-time teacher, I believe that I can handle the business of the day. I am enjoying all the aspects of the job.

Highlights
I have found that I am not good at welding using oxy-acetylene. I did a demonstration this week and it was a flop. It was a good teaching moment though since I could tell my students that I am still learning, and I challenged them to weld better than me. Some of them have! Two of my students in Small Engines class finished putting their engine together and decided to blow it up to see what damage would be done. Once they took the engine apart, they found that the connecting rod had broke. This week was full of fun experiences!

Questions

• How do you motivate students that do not care about grades or anything about school?
• What strategies are out there to manage an agricultural mechanics lab?

Eight Weeks Complete, Eight Weeks to Go

Wow, we are halfway through our student teaching internships! Where did the time go?!? I have had so many crazy, fun days that I can't believe that we only have eight weeks to go! This journey has been stressful, but worth every ounce of it. 

Highlights
This week I had observed Kaitlin Liszka at Bermudian Springs which was a great visit if you are interested in learning more about that visit click here. Upon my return to Solanco on Tuesday, it was a pretty normal week. I had a few disciplinary actions to take, but that all a part of the job right? My students are well behaved for the most part which is nice. One key thing that happened this week was working on the fly with little to no lesson plans since my original idea didn't work out. Those lessons actually turned out really well, and I think that I did a good job of staying calm during the chaos. I am looking forward to next week!

Questions

• How do you handle discipline when multiple students are involved in the misbehavior/disruption of class?
• How often do you have to write a disciplinary action that is sent to the administration? 

From Lancaster Co to Adams Co

Today I had visited Ms. Liszka at Bermudian Springs High School. The purpose of my visit was to observe her teach to learn from another cohort member as well as help her find strengths and weaknesses. Throughout the day I had observed her teach Ag Business, Ag Mech 1 and 2, Animal Science, and Greenhouse.

Highlights
During her Ag Mech 2 class, she had taught about compression ratios, and how it will affect engine performance as well as the power delivered to the PTO. Ms. Liszka's forte in animal science had shown through as she taught conversions of calories to Mcal/kg. Regardless of her tactics to get her students to answers why it is important for the conversion, they didn't know how to answer the question. They ended being saved by the fire drill so they did not have to figure out the answer today.

Furthermore, during her Ag Mech 1 class, I was assisting her in teaching welding and oxy-acetylene cutting since she has a larger class. It was neat to bring my own experience into her classroom to help her students learn a little more about welding or cutting processes. I am currently teaching welding at Solanco, and utilizing what I have learned in another school was a great way to spend the day. 

As the visit came to a close, I was impressed by her strategies to get her student involved in the lessons she was teaching as well as her classroom management techniques to reign in the students that were not on task. 

Solanco FFA @ACES

On February 22nd and 23rd, Solanco FFA had attended the ACES conference hosted by the Pennsylvania FFA. We had four students, one advisor, and a student-teacher, travel to Harrisburg, PA for the event.

The students that we had come to the event were excited to interact with new people from across the state as well as Virginia. Once they had finished their workshops, the had mentioned all the cool things they had learned like conversation skills and networking with people/businesses. They also made new friendships that will last for a lifetime. 

While the students had attended their workshops, I also attended an Ag Business workshop through Penn State Center for Professional Personnel Development. In this workshop, we learned about balance sheets, income statements, business entities, and business planning. Going through this workshop gave me ideas to bring back to the classroom as I soon enter my financial unit in Ag Business Operations. 

This weekend was a great time to see what it is like to be an advisor/mentor instead of being in that student role. My cooperating teacher had given me full reign of instructing the students as well as doing evening room checks. It is neat to look back at all my experiences as a student and state FFA officer and understand the principles and ideas that were shared by my FFA advisors. I am excited to continue my journey with Solanco. Looking back at everything I have done, experienced, or achieved it was all worth the hard work in order to make it to this point in my life. 

Where Did This Week Go?

What a week! Between traveling to Penn State, being observed, and picking up a full schedule of courses, this week had flown by in a blink of an eye (wait that rhymed)! Crazy to imagine that I am at a full schedule when it feels like just yesterday I started teaching one course.

Highlights
I have picked up a full schedule so I am tackling this whole student teaching experience head-on at this point. I am enjoying every bit of this experience even though there is daily stress of did I plan enough, am I saying the right things, and am I actually getting through to the students. On Friday this week, I had instructed students on planing their rough-cut lumber which was an interesting task. If I had to go back and reinstruct that process, I would not only teach the process in the classroom but also demonstrate what I want to see in the shop before the machine is turned on. That should alleviate any confusion they would have. 

Things to Improve
I have noticed a few weaknesses in my methods of teaching. Sometimes I do not always explain the why and that is a major downfall to my lessons because they may not understand the purpose of the material we had just covered. I really need to do a better job of reading my students. I am struggling in figuring out what is the best way to read their minds and determine if they are paying attention to me or not.

Check back in next week to hear about my experience.