Student Teaching: Week 11!

As I wind down my teaching load I have more of a chance to not only reflect upon what I have done but also to watch my cooperating teacher teach. Of course with all of the observations I've done and with my week prior to teaching I was able to observe; however, now that I have taught for several weeks observing others teach makes so many more connections. For example I often have a hard time making the felt need to know in three minutes and I see her take a whole period just to explain why what they are going to discuss over the next few weeks is important! I mentioned this to her and she had nothing really to say as to help me it "just comes natural." Now I'm sure that there is a way to go from where I am to where she is where everything "just comes natural" but my question is how do you get there! What's the path to getting there! The only answer I've been able to get is it just takes experience which comes with time...

I knew going into this that it would be difficult when I have students that I just can't get through to. When there are students that leave before I have a chance to make them really care! I've had that student. One of my freshman students is really a nice kid he just has a rough life, and this last fight he was in was apparently the final straw. As I walked to the office with my teacher on Friday he was there with a school withdrawal form for her to sign. I was surprised with how much it affected me! I thought that if I had just given him enough help in order to be successful in my class it would make him care enough to stick it out. Granted he is going to another school but does that mean he will be more successful there than at our school. Something makes me doubt that...

Student Teaching: Week 9!

This was a crazy week! I got my first touch of what it's like to be a real ag teacher! I was doing things after school Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday night including an officer meeting Wednesday morning! It was a great week to really test my desire to be an ag teacher and take on such a responsibility. Till it was all said and done it just pushed me farther into the career. Spending the day with 110 different kids is exciting and such a blessing but the real blessing is when you spend time outside of school with the kids. That's when the relationships really blossom! I enjoy so much having that opportunity to talk to them and get to know them with out 20 other kids around.

This week I stayed after school late to prepare students for the Public Speaking CDE. Really, I just observed my magnificent cooperating teacher work with the students! It's great opportunity being able to watch her coach the public speakers. The littlest things she does is probably second nature to her but to me sitting there my mind is blown! All I think is that's such a good idea or what made you start doing that or wow that really works!

Thursday night was the public speaking CDE. It was a very upsetting night for Juniata. There was definitely some injustice done to our speakers. And I don't say that because I'm biased, I say that because CDE rules were not followed properly in order to ensure a level playing field for all students involved. However, because of the high standards of Juniata, the kids handled it very humbly. I was very impressed and PROUD of my students as they walked away smiles on their faces. Of course they knew there was a problem but they handled it very well. The hardest part was that my students with Aspergers did an EXCELLENT job preparing for the competition and had an 8 minute and 33 second speech entirely memorized and had hand gestures, and was prepared for questions. He placed 4 out of 5. When I was in FFA and competed in CDEs I was upset when I didn't place well BUT, being an advisor and helping students prepare for events and they don't place where they want to its a much worse feeling, especially when they went above and beyond what was required of them.

But, Juniata will go on, in three different CDEs.

Student Teaching: Week 8!

It's crazy to think that I'm more than half way done with this experience already! As I sit and reflect upon what I've learned in the past 8 weeks my mind is spinning.

What's really bothering me this week is student motivation! Specifically the labeling done by IEPs. I have students with an IEP and I don't understand why they have an IEP. I have students without IEPs and I wonder why they DON'T have an IEP! The educational system is failing students! My students do everything for completion it's never about what they learn only what they have to do and what they're grade is... It's very frustrating as a teacher! I have one student that does absolutely nothing. He sits beside the magazine rack and reads a magazine most periods. According to his IEP he must have teachers notes, so I give him the teacher's notes and he then he doesn't complete the guided notes. So I stopped giving him teacher's notes and he still doesn't do the guided notes. I ask him to do something and (very respectfully) he just says nahhh. According to his IEP he can turn work in anytime until the end of the marking period and can't receive late credit. For a student that lacks ambition that's not a very good way to make him successful! It's a battle that I guess I decided isn't worth fighting, as far as the magazines because he isn't distracting other students and he doesn't read anything he just looks at pictures so my head wants to believe that he's listening... He had an assessment this week and I don't understand is that he did ALL of the math to figure out the ear notching on the piglets, but left the next page blank because its short answer! And the answers to the test were throughout the test! He answered the questions correctly for multiple choice all he had to do was write the answer but he didn't. He's not even doing the bare minimum to get by! And for someone that hates school why not try at least hard enough to get out of it!!

I also have a very unmotivated officer team! My cooperating teacher and I since the beginning of my internship have been questioning the work ethic of our officer team. I from the beginning thought it was poor and now that my teacher isn't teaching she has time on her hands to realize what they are contributing to the chapter, and it's very minimal. When asked to do something they get upset. They want all of the credit for having a 2-star chapter but they don't want to put the effort into making that so for years to come. They don't communicate and they don't care. I just don't know what to do to help make them motivated and care about the success of their chapter!

Student Teaching: Week 7!

I finally feel like I'm getting a hang of this teaching thing. I'm finding new and exciting ways for students to show what they know. I'm finding ways address the multiple intelligence's and as I do this i'm realizing how that when learning is fun for the students it's much more fun for the teacher as well! I'm always excited about what i'm teaching (except wildlife and fishery science) but making the students feel my excitement isn't always easy.

Something I did this week that was really fun was my interest approach for Parliamentary Procedure!! I created a meeting agenda and since most of my officers were in the class we went through opening and closing ceremonies and the items of business to discuss were the information of the class. The students really enjoyed it because it was new fun and an exciting way to learn!

This week I also realized that it’s so much easier to be at school than to not be there! I had my first experience writing sub plans and preparing the students for my absence! According to school policy teachers are not allowed to leave their computers unlocked or give the substitute the access information. So any work given had to be in the form of worksheets or videos, etc. Granted, there’s nothing wrong with this, but this makes things difficult, for me anyway! So after writing sub plans and creating activities for students to do I realize that I have two more days of sub plans to write! It was much easier the second time for sure!

As I begin to make connections with students I begin to realize that there is can’t possibly be a job any more rewarding than teaching! 

However, sometimes those relationships are emotionally a struggle. There are some students that are just happy, all the time and they’re great and then there are students that seem sad all of the time. And sometimes I just have to wonder how much of a front are the students putting on? What are they struggling with at home? Where and who is home? When they strive for so much attention is it because that’s all of the attention they get in one day? Sometimes it’s really tough when I have a student that just talks and talks and talks when I’m trying to do something before or after school or during my plan period but I realize that whatever I’m doing it can wait right now what this student really needs is just someone to talk to even if you have no idea what their talking about.

I really do enjoy teaching and forming connections with the students and as I get deeper and deeper into my internship I am realizing how hard it’s going to be to leave Juniata!

Student Teaching: Week 6!

Throughout my experience I had known that assessments, formal and summative, we’re not going to be my strong suits. This week I found out why. With the 9 snow days we have had the units have been pushed back a week and a half and the unit I did finish was a project. So my first test was this week. I told the students two days prior to and we reviewed the day before.

I do understand that my expectations are very high.

However, I was do not believe that they are impossible to meet.

I am beginning to think that the educational system is doing a great disservice to the students! They believe that education is all about memorization and grades nothing to do with the journey but only the destination!

So I told the students to take time to look over their notes and study their fish “knowbook.” Students choose not to utilize the time for studying. So I asked if they were sure they wanted to begin and if they had any questions and they said nope we’re ready. I said okay then. I knew that there were questions that we went over quickly in class and I knew it wasn’t fair to ask them to identify 17 fish. So on the test I told them they had to identify only 6 fish! And I had all intentions of giving them 3 minutes at the end to utilize their “knowbook” and an article to check answers on their test. I didn’t give tell them at the beginning because I didn’t want them to just wait until this time was given to answer questions. To make a long story short, I had one very disgruntled student that acted very inappropriately. For the first time my patience was tested. I explained that if she had a problem she should approach me individually and not disrupt the other students! I do take partial blame to the assessment because I may not have been entirely prepared as far as giving the students enough time in advance to know and prepare for the test and being prepared with the test that period.

I also had students turn in a final manuscript for their speech. This was my leadership class and I was very upset and disappointed with the students. They had 30 instructional days to complete their speech prior to my arrival, and after receiving a grade for the first manuscript they had a week for making revisions. I graded the first speech very hard to light a fire under their behind! After receiving their speech grade and manuscript grade I had them write a reflection on what they thought of their speech and what they thought could be improved, students did so. After receiving all speeches, reflections and final manuscripts I graded them taking into consideration: the first manuscript, reflection, and final manuscript. Students still did not score high on their manuscripts, the grade they received on the final manuscripts ended up dropping some students grade very, very low. They were very upset with me but for the most part I thought that they deserved the grade they received for their effort. However, knowing that they thought I had failed them wasn’t something I could live with so I gave them the option to grade themselves and write a reflection telling me why they deserved that grade! I told them this was their chance to fight for their grade.

From these experiences with assessments I’ve realized it’s very important for me to clearly explain my expectations! It’s also very important to give students time to prepare for exams and give them something such as a vocab list, or questions, or anything really to be able to say if you know this and are comfortable with this information you’ll do fine on the assessment. I also realized that it’s good to ease their mind before the exam. Talk to them explain what’s on the test, explain that it’s not hard they’ll be fine; basically anything to ease their mind and relax them. 

Student Teaching: Week 5!

This week the unit assessment for my intro to Ag class was finally due, they we're creating a sheep and goat enterprise and presenting it to the class. I was very specific on the rubric, all they had to do was complete the information and present it. During the process of working on their enterprises they had a few snow days and there was an issue with using the computer lab so some finished their PowerPoint in the classroom and some finished theirs as Posters. Taking these hiccups into consideration I was not really impressed with their enterprise. Some students had all of the information but put very little emphasis on making it presentable. And I'm struggling on deciding how to grade it because value added wasn't a part of the project and if they did have all of the information but if they just did it to do it and didn't care how it turned out should I give them that grade?

My next struggle this week is probably my 3 period class. This class is plant science and leadership. The original plan was for me to teach one and Mrs. Morgan teach the other but because my first unit was Public Speaking we thought everyone can use that so I taught them together. The leadership students finished their speeches and now they are working to improve them for round two, so I decided to start plant science on floral design while they work on their speeches. So essentially I'm teaching both classes at the same time... What a struggle! It's so difficult because leadership should be working to improve their speeches right now and even though I specifically address the Plant science students the leadership students are answering my questions and adding comments. I don't feel comfortable telling the leadership students they cannot participate but I don't know how else to solve the problem.

Something great happened this week! Friday, first period I was teaching about the origin of the pork industry. I made a statement that Hernando De Soto was the father of the American pork industry. And being FFA week I thought of a trivia question who is the father of the FFA? I asked the class and they were saying names and I said the first one to tell me in 15 seconds gets a bonus point so they all started shouting names and I was at 13 seconds when one student got the answer right. So I wrote on the board his name and drew a big star around it. I could tell he really liked the praise. So as I continued with my lecture as students answered difficult questions I wrote their names on the board with big stars and the kids ate it up! If I forgot to write their names they would say "hey, where's my star?" It was a really great idea that boosted the energy level and praised the students for participation.

Student Teaching: Week 4!

Once again, another short week! I had three instructional days this week with Monday being a two-hour delay!

I picked up a new class this week, Wildlife and Fishery Science... Not my area of interest...

This week I'm dealing with teaching a class that's not interesting to me. Wildlife and fishery science. The other classes and subjects I'm currently teaching are interesting and exciting to me and knowing content off hand has helped me to fill in those extra minutes or help expand the lesson with tid bits of knowledge. With this class I don't have that ability. I have two of these classes and I actually enjoy teaching one of the classes but the other I could probably do without, and I know that's a bad teacher attitude, so I don't let the kids on to my lack of enthusiasm...

There also seems to be a student in my second wildlife class that sets the tone for all of the students and it's not a good tone. I do try to be fun and excited with the kids but they really aren't interested in what we're doing. For example, we started with a "know book" on the fish of PA, I made a example page and showed the students what we were going to do, I drew an example on the board, and I explained it when they were doing it and yet students we're confused. It was very frustrating to me! I though I was being clear and when I went through it with the first class they were fine and had less directions. I was also using this lesson to fulfill a moodle assignment (incorporating music and art into a lesson). It was a complete flop for the students, the music was distracting and they didn't like the know book. But because they only got through three fish, now we'll be doing this for more than one day...

I also had my first student issue. My student has ADD as well as anger issues, and to make a long story short I was trying to keep him focused and on task all period and he was getting annoyed from the other kids in class and kept tell me he was getting upset and he making comments under his breath. So I finally told him to take 10 seconds outside to cool down. He thought that was a good idea so he walked out to the shop, and as soon as the door shut I thought "I hope he comes back!" And he did come back! This was the last day this week, so we'll start with a clean slate Monday. My only concern is that he will take advantage of this option that I gave him and think he get's 10 seconds every class! But innocent until proven guilty, he'll only do this when needed.