Bringing it all together... My first teaching experience at Wellsboro!

Shortly after my teaching experiences for 3 days at Williamsburg I had the opportunity to teach a lesson at my cooperating center, Wellsboro. This was my first time (of many) teaching at Wellsboro and gave me a "taste" of what to expect when I start teaching there in January!

Here is a little about what lesson I taught.... Using FFA.org I selected a LifeKnowledge lesson that had to do with meetings. I selected this lesson to teach to the FFA/Ag Leadership students so they could learn about what makes a meeting effective and a little about the order of business for meetings based on Roberts Rules of Order. They worked in groups to identify the proper order of Order of Business using prepared post-its with the titles on them. I also had them perform the opening ceremonies (getting up and moving to the appropriate spots around the room) reading from the FFA Official Manual. With limited amount of time in a class, we had time for these 2 activities, introductions, and of course feedback of my performance as a teacher!

Leading discussion on effective meetings

For being the last class of the day right before Thanksgiving break, I think it went great! I asked the students to anonymously give me feedback on the lesson and received almost completely positive reviews. From the student reviews and the evaluation of Mrs. Berndtson I came to a few conclusions on my points of improvement.

First, it was difficult for me to engage all students since I only knew the names of a few students and the ones I had not met before were apprehensive about participating. I think with time this will improve once I am familiar with students' names, personalities, and abilities. This class was a bit difficult to manage since there are freshmen who have no previous knowledge on the content (and therefore even more apprehensive about participation), but also seniors and FFA Officers (who I had the pleasure of meeting before) with a wealth of knowledge on meetings because of their extensive experience. In the future I have to be more aware of that so the same students aren't consistently answering and I can challenge the less experienced students to think about answers.

Assisting students in identifying the order of business

I really didn't get negative feedback, and I really do think it went well. Although engagement was tough at some points, they expressed that they enjoyed the activities (especially opening ceremonies). The last class of the day right before Thanksgiving break is bound to be difficult for engagement though! I was also very pleased with timing of this lesson within the period. During micro teaching I ran out of time to finish my lesson appropriately the first 2 days. During this lesson at Wellsboro I was pleased that I had the time to conclude, review objectives, and have students give feedback without rushing through anything. Definitely some positives and some points of improvement to think about as student teaching quickly approaches in January!

My cooperating teacher, Mrs. Berndtson (right) and myself

Thanks for reading and special thanks to Mrs. Berndtson for allowing me to take over the FFA/Ag Leadership class for the day to talk about effective meetings!