10 weeks down... 5 to go!

First, I encourage you to take 2 minutes out of your day to watch this awesome video one of my students put together!

One of the 5 FFA members that went to SLLC also missed 2 more days of school (total of 4!) for a horse expo. She was responsible for the notes in class, but wished to do something different for a project. I told her that the other students would be doing a project and that she had to do a project worth similar weight and time put into it. She has expressed interest in vlogging in the past so this became the perfect opportunity to assign a similar project. She was assigned the task of reflecting on SLLC... and the above video is the outcome! (which she gave me permission to publish and she posted on youtube).

An Sci II students created head bands,
notched an assigned number, and then
had to read/record their classmates notches

I only just received my final class this week, so I'm working on a full teacher schedule now! 5 weeks to go and this teaching thang is in full swing. With that comes stressful days, sleepless nights, but also endless smiles. I'm used to working with theses students and they're getting used to me which (I think) has done wonders for my classroom environment.

Positives:

Plant Science were assigned certain insects
(caterpillar, butterfly, etc.) and had to eat food
using only their assigned part - one student had
a straw while one student could only use teeth!

I felt like my creative juices were flowing this week and it made some interesting class sessions! This week ranged from developing (and playing) board games on wildlife in the Natural Resources class, having a game show style eating contest where the Plant Science students had different insect mouthparts, and making a pig ear head band to notch in Animal Science II. Reflecting on the week I feel like I had some great activities that engaged students in the content!

Natural Resources students designed
and developed a game board (per student)
 to test their knowledge of PA wildlife!

Points of Improvement:

My biggest goal this week is to further challenge my students. I have tried to make sure I'm testing their knowledge, but I do want to implement more quizzes and other evaluation techniques to ensure that they are being rewarded for learning and not just for doing their assigned work. I think a part of me is assigning more projects and work to reward students who work hard and neglecting to reward those students who are retaining the information because of who I was as a student. I easily passed tests and quizzes so I want to reward those students who actually put the time and effort into work - not necessarily those who remember things easily. I realize that I need to assess students on their actual knowedge. This will evaluate how much they are learning, stress the importance of studying/learning the material, and also help me evaluate my lessons. Knowing how they do on their assessments will tell me where I was lacking with assisting them in learning about various subjects.