Third week has come to an end

Grand Canyon FFA participated in a mock hunger banquet

The third week of student teaching has come and gone quickly as I expected. This week I experienced my first Activity Day where students have shortened classes in order to make time (about 40 minutes) to meet for various organizations. This makes it easier for some students who can't stay after school. The FFA had time to conduct a mock hunger banquet with members since the Chapter President wants to have a Hunger Banquet later in the year. There hasn't been an opportunity to witness a Hunger Banquet by another chapter so this served as a practice run. Although my classes were shortened by a few minutes it was beneficial to see the different students that came to the meeting. It was eye opening to most students, in my opinion, especially since most of them didn't have a lot of rice krispies to eat. At a Hunger Banquet you are assigned a country (and maybe a name and story along with it!) and get your portions based off that countries resources and population. This frustrated students from Asia (pictured) that only had a small square to split 22 ways compared to the 3 students from  North America that had a whole plateful.

Animal Science students conducted a fecal analysis

This was my first full week of classes since students were wrapping up presentations of their SAE's from the week before. To end off my week students in my Animal Science I class conducted a fecal analysis on goat fecal samples in an attempt to understand parasites and their life cycles further. Students had been learning about parasites for most of the week and I thought it would be a great end to the week! Some students were mortified about working with fecal samples, but most students were engaging the way I had hoped.

Being my first full week of teaching experience I had a lot of ups and downs. Some students would talk while I was talking or not listen while other days/classes would be vibrant and engaged in activities. It gave me some time to reflect on exactly the types of things I need to work on.

Points of improvement:

First, I really want to add more detail to my prepared lesson plans so I can manage class time efficiently and better prepare transitions and questions. I found that some of my lessons seemed jumbled and students sometimes needed further clarification.

Second, I need to be more aware of the class dynamic. The 2 periods I'm teaching are rather large and I don't even have all the names down yet. I need to make sure I look closely at interactions of students so I can pinpoint where any issues are between students. This can make it easier for me to fix talking or other issues.

Third, I want to put more focus into the objectives I have set for the classes. I want to make students more aware of what they will be doing and make sure to check that they are obtaining the objectives I have for each class.


I really felt this week like I have more to work on improving than I thought. I'm trying to stay positive and realize that I can't be perfect in my first few weeks of student teaching. Just to stop on a positive note though, I think something I do well has everything to do with my passion for animal science. Since that is the only class right now I enjoy teaching students about the animals and bonding with students about their own experiences with animals. I'm sharing my love of animals with students and they are sharing with me so that is something I'm proud of!