Week 4 was a hit!

Students practiced subcutaneous and intramuscular injections

Student teaching is flying by and I (and the rest of #psuaged16) am already over a quarter of the way done. I feel as though every time I blink another day goes by!

This week I have been teaching 3 of the class periods and am teaching Animal Sciences I & II. With animal science being my favorite and most knowledgable topic, it has been great picking up these classes first. I don't need to focus too much on ensuring my understanding of the content and can completely focus on how my lessons are put together.

My highlights of the week including most of my Friday. Animal Science students had learned about diseases, vaccines, and related topics all week and were able to put their knowledge to the test with injections on Friday! Students were able to practice on bananas and oranges and then perform a subcutaneous and intramuscular injection on a banana for credit. Even with instructions (multiple times) on proper handling of syringes I still had a student poke herself with the syringe and need a bandaid. There were over 40 students that performed the lab, so I tried to look at the silver lining and realize about 42 students didn't run into any issues! I really think that with a lab like this that the preparation is worth it. They couldn't remember the names of injection sites from the day before, but performing the injections on  fruit helped them realize exactly how injections work.

Another highlight this Friday was my "field trip" to another classroom - this time a Chemistry class. I wanted to share (especially for my #psuaged16 cohort!) about one of her assignments. Students are assigned to work on a song related to the topic at hand using a song people are familiar with. Students had so much fun with the assignment and so proud of what they had accomplished. Most importantly, they now have those topics memorized! Learning can exist in various forms, and seeing her approach opened new doors for me! Of course at Penn State we were encouraged to appeal to multiple intelligences of students. I do not excel with musical and I have been struggling to appeal to that modality for students that can benefit from it. I'm thinking involving an assignment (with reflection like this teacher implemented) can really get students learning and being creative! Check out her one class video below (not the one I saw in class, but a past assignment):