My adventure with Greenwood at the National FFA Convention!

Unlike all of my fellow student teachers, my cooperating center (Wellsboro: Grand Canyon FFA) did not attend the 88th National FFA Convention. Basically, they go every other year (to keep it something students have to work for) unless they are competing nationally. This year just so happened to be an off year. I was extremely disappointed since I have already developed a relationship with Grand Canyon FFA officers and have gotten to know some students. I was lucky enough to still be able to attend the convention, just not with the group I would be student teaching in the Spring. Instead, the Greenwood FFA chapter adopted me for the week. Mrs. Pontius and Mr. Clark teach the Greenwood students and advise the FFA chapter. They were kind enough to allow me to take on the advisor role with their students for the week.

Before my experience started I was nervous about advising students I had never met before. I was anxious about how they would take to this strange outsider being in charge or how they would react to my presence at the convention. Plus, I was missing the Grand Canyon FFA members! Although more time with the Grand Canyon FFA would've been ideal, spending time with Greenwood FFA was a terrific experience.

It was clear that the teachers at Greenwood develop a working relationship with students based on respect, trust, and dedication. Because of the respect built between the teachers and students, Greenwood FFA members conducted themselves responsibly throughout the whole trip. The Greenwood teachers trusted the students and their ability to conduct themselves that the very first day of convention I (and a parent chaperone) were left with the bulk of the group. Some students were competing in the Novice Parliamentary Procedure Competition and both the teachers attended while trusting myself and the chaperone to take the other students to the Kentucky Speedway and the

Kentucky Horse Park. The teachers mentioned it and it was clear that if you have terrific students that understand what is expected of them, you can do extra fun things. They would not have been able to pawn off 12 ill-mannered students on a student teacher they didn't know to truck them around Kentucky.

I have only been to one other convention (last year) and I travelled with Penn State to recruit FFA Members into the College of Ag Sciences. This year was so different being placed into that advisor role, and in so many ways it was so much better! I had more responsibility since I was with a group of 18 students all week, but the rewards of bonding with these students were unforgettable. In just a week I got to know the students I travelled with as we attended general sessions, concerts (chorus, band, and Jake Owen!), and explored Kentucky.

My biggest take-away from this experience was that the relationship between students and teachers is critical for a happy student and a happy teacher. The teachers at Greenwood show their students that they care about them as people and show them a certain level of respect. They have developed a relationship with the students where they feel comfortable coming to their teachers with problems and telling them about their day. The Greenwood teachers have found that "sweet spot" where students can come to them, but yet respect them. I could not have had a better trip because Greenwood treated me like I was a third advisor, they treated me like a member of the 'Greenwood family', and even asked me if I could student teach there. This National Convention trip was unforgettable and really showed me how important it is to show students you care about them and encourage responsibility.

Check out some highlights of convention AND check out a few seconds of Greenwood FFA (and myself in the back) getting excited for the convention at 1:35! The video is not yet on youtube, so check it out on the National FFA Organization Facebook page.

Reflecting on Inquiry-Based Instruction

According to Alberta Learning, "Inquiry-based learning is a process where students are involved in their learning, formulate questions, investigate widely and then build new understandings, meanings and knowledge" (2004). Inquiry-based instruction develops interest and critical thinking skills within students. Through inquiry-based instruction, they learn how to independently solve problems and develop processes to critical thinking. Although the process is different to individuals, Alberta Learning had this helpful picture (to the right) of the steps within the process.

Reflecting on the process is in the center because it is critical to the model and should be used within every step. The planning phase is usually what gets students interested. They are introduced to the issue and start to feel optimistic about solving the puzzle introduced to them. Retrieving is an important step for the teacher to interact with a guide student learning because this step can cause frustration within students. The retrieving stage involves students thinking about the information they do have and searching for the information they need. Students can develop frustrations when they run into obstacles with not enough or too much research. The processing phase involves focusing the inquiry and determining what research is necessary for the topic.

The creating phase is important because students take the knowledge they ave learned and now put it into their own words and their own format. The sharing phase is the chance students get to share what they learned with a specific audience (peers, community, etc.). I see this phase as a way to put the students in a teacher role. They get to present what they learned which will only help in their learning process. They say you learn best when you have to teach it! Finally, evaluating is essential for students to develop understanding and critique of the process. They should be able to articulate what they did and how it was important. All these steps are a great foundation to start inquiry-based instruction in any subject, but there are many ways to accomplish inquiry-based instruction!

I think this process is essential to encourage within students so they can develop independence and problem solving skills. Like I said, this process can be used in any subject and I think Agricultural Education can implement inquiry-based instruction easily. My first instinct is to implement this inquiry-based instruction process by assigning a research paper on a controversial topic like GMO's. I could also see myself assigning a presentation for students to present research on what variables impact an ecosystem. Students could also present findings to middle school classes or fair events on the research they found on animal diseases. The possibilities are endless in how inquiry-based instruction can be implemented in agricultural education! 

Check out the below resource on inquiry-based instruction!


Reference:

Alberta Learning. (2004) Focus on inquiry: a teacher?s guide to implementing inquiry-based learning. Retrieved from https://education.alberta.ca/media/313361/focusoninquiry.pdf

Evaluating Learning Reading Reflection

Evaluating student learning can be challenging to teachers. I find it difficult to think about how to grade students that work hard, put effort into their, and genuinely try to improve when compared to the student that puts no effort in, but seems to pass with flying colors in classes.There are countless ways to evaluate students and the teacher must decide: Should students be given a test, assigned a project, present a presentation? It is the educators job to figure out what assignment or test and then what type will best evaluate student comprehension.

Although I'm only just beginning my teaching journey (with student teaching starting in January), I find myself struggling at just the thought of how I can evaluate students. I think a lot of it comes from the fact that I was the student who didn't have to study and just did well on tests in most classes. I want to encourage hard work with my students and not allow them to rest on their exceptional test taking skills. To accomplish this, I plan to implement evaluations of all types. I hope to assign projects, presentations, and tests that contain essays and short answers along with multiple choice. We know students learn in different ways and they will perform differently on various types of evaluations. To ensure there is variety in evaluation will give all students a chance to show what they have learned because there will be students like myself that excel at tests, but there will be others that will only excel at projects or presentations.

I found this weeks reading on evaluating exceptional learners particularly interesting (Jung & Guskey, 2010). Mostly, I found it important to keep in mind that you can grade students based on three different criteria: Product, Process, and Progress. It's an interesting concept to me and definitely something educators should keep in mind. Product is very typical in education because it will show a learners knowledge through a test, project, or other assessment focused on comprehension. Process criteria focuses on how students are going through their class and include grades on their behavior or their class participation. Lastly, progress emphasizes how they have developed and improved instead of their just their final comprehension level. I think that all three should be used to assess students depending on the situation. For instance: students will start at different levels in an ag mechanics lab so progress would best be used as the criteria to ensure that students improve, not just achieve a high level of comprehension.

This will be the second time I'm sharing an Edutopia video, but that just shows how much they really have to offer. This video will provoke some thought about how you assess students, whether they are elementary student or high school agriculture students!  They even talk about the importance of reflection (which #psuaged16 is practicing consistently through our learning process). The video reviews the five keys to assessing students which they have indicated as: goals and measures, formative, summative, performance, and student ownership. The video will give me great insight on developing important skills for students through assessments. I recommend checking out what Edutopia has on their site and youtube regarding any topics in education.


Reference: 

• Jung, L.A. & Guskey, T.R. (2010). Grading exceptional learners. Educational Leadership, 67(5). Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/feb10/vol67/num05/Grading-Exceptional-Learners.aspx

Problem Solving Approach Lab Reflection

This week I got pretty good feedback on my problem-solving approach lesson. We had to develop a lesson that challenged students to solve a problem. Sounds like an easy task (or at least I thought so), but I struggled to create a lesson for this lab. I spent hours just narrowing down a topic because I couldn't think of a great way for students to solve a problem. This reflection is based almost completely on my preparation process and not the presentation of the lesson because that is where I struggled.

During my lesson planning I kept thinking: Should I have them design a landscape? Is that even a problem? Should I have them diagnose a sick animal? Would that be too in-depth for high school level? Should I have students identify potential pollutants? I jumped around quite a bit until I finally just picked one. I decided not to perform the pollutants lesson because I already mentioned it in class earlier this week and thought I should pick something different. It was a toss-up between the other two, literally. I actually just flipped a coin and decided on animal disease diagnosis.

My struggles didn't end there. I spent way more time through this whole process than I anticipated. Hours went by and I finally picked a lesson. My next struggle was finding information that wasn't beyond high school level, but yet would challenge students. I ended up just creating my own case study for students. A lot of information out there is designed to challenge College level students and Veterinary students. So I designed the lesson from scratch because it was easier than trying to simplify any case studies I did find.

Facilitating group discussion

Here's the basics to my final created lesson: Students briefly learned/reviewed the physical examination process of an animal. We then role played that I (the teacher) was a pet owner and the students were veterinarians. Throughout the review of the physical examination process they were to ask questions and observe my pet dog, Molly. They used FFA Vet Science CDE disease packets to individually diagnose Molly and then worked in a  group to make a final decision on what they thought was wrong with Molly.  I designed the lesson with one disease in mind knowing that students could potentially diagnose differently. In this exercise there were no tests so they had to diagnose the dog based only on symptoms they heard from the questions they asked.

My seemingly endless hours of stressing over this one lesson plan did pay off in the end. I got pretty good feedback from my peers and professor on the student problem-solving activity. I still need to work on that gosh darn enthusiasm and my transitions could use some help, but at least the planning paid off.

For future lessons I think more time should be put into the flow of the lesson and not worry so much about narrowing down a topic. More time into the planning process will benefit my lesson presentation ultimately. 

After all, "Those who fail to plan, plan to fail." - Winston Churchill

Project-Based Learning

As a student, projects were either a hit or miss for me. Some projects I could really get into, show what I could do, and explore my interests while others just weren't as "fun". As I reflect on the weekly readings this week, I keep thinking about Project-Based Learning and how it's important that projects are not just busy work for students. According to Larmer and Mergendoller, a project must be meaningful in 2 ways: 1) Students must perceive it as meaningful and something they will strive to do well on, and 2) must contain a meaningful, educational purpose. Project-Based Learning has the capability of providing both of the aspects of a meaningful project if designed and implemented properly. Projects must be thought-provoking and challenge students to solve a problem.

If you Google Project-Based Learning you will find the definition: 

8 essentials for PBL

Project Based Learning (PBL) is a teaching method in which students gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to an engaging and complex question, problem, or challenge.

I think the biggest take-away with PBL is that it is used to encourage the problem-solving within students. PBL gives students independence and encourages them to learn on their own. It requires the teacher to become more of the facilitator role and students direct their own learning through the project. In the simplest terms: the teacher does not introduce material then assign a project, the students educate themselves through the well-designed project.

To learn more about PBL, I highly recommend looking at Edutopia. They have amazing resources and information useful to all teachers, but I found this video especially helpful for PBL.

I am very excited about possibly implementing a PBL project while student teaching in the Spring. I see it as a different way to introduce a new topic to the students. Having to figure out problems or information on their own (and I will help as needed) can encourage critical thinking and problem-solving skills within the students. Critical-thinking and problem-solving skills are important for 21st century learners, and teachers must encourage development of these skills within students in many ways possible (PBL is a great one!)

In case you want to explore Project-Based Learning more with what #psuaged16 is is conquering this week:

• Larmer, J. & Mergendoller, J.R. (2010). The main course, not dessert: How are students reaching 21st century goals? With 21st century project based learning. Retrieved from http://bie.org/object/document/main_course_not_dessert
• Larmer, J. & Mergendoller, J.R. (2010). 8 essentials for project-based learning. Retrieved fromhttp://www.sbcss.k12.ca.us/attachments/article/1058/8_Essentials_article_small_file_size_Oct2012version.pdf

Unpacking the Fall Leadership Conference Workshop

I had the immense pleasure of presenting a 2 1/2 hour workshop to 23 students holding the Reporter office in their FFA Chapters. I also had a great team (since I didn't facilitate alone) that included Sarabeth Royer, Miranda Kane, and myself. I would say that for a group of "rookies" we didn't do too bad presenting this workshop!

Miranda rockin' it out with media skills

Fall Leadership Conference is attended by many chapters across PA and the workshops were designed to teach the officers about their duties. This experience is great for students because even if they already are aware of their duties, they get ample time to network with other chapter officers. Our varied group of Reporters were given blank contact sheets to take advantage of this network opportunity and students were even late to lunch trying to trade contact information!

Our workshop seemed to grab and maintain the attention of this group of students. When they first entered the room they seemed tired (many drove quite a distance) and disengaged from any activities they were about to participate in. With an explosive surprise skit, students became interested (or maybe confused) as to what was going on. I give the credit of student engagement for the lesson to this interest approach we implemented. I fully believe that the explosive interest approach hooked them into what we were about to share. If you don't believe that our interest approach was explosive: ask some PA Ag Teachers. We were so loud and excitable about the start of our workshop that we unknowingly distracted the teacher workshop next door!

Sarabeth facilitating a discussion on Reporter responsibilities

I give credit to our interest approach to grabbing student's attention, but without a stellar lesson packed with activities their engagement would have surely dwindled in the nearly 3 hours they were with us. Extensive planning for a few weeks prior yielded a lesson that included activities like interviewing each other, identifying their duties (easter egg hunt style!), and reciting their opening ceremonies along with developed hand signals to assist in remembering. There truly wasn't a dull moment in our workshop and even while students were working we played music, danced around, turned off the lights at some points, and waved a flag throughout the workshop. I really felt that my team worked well and we fed off each other's energy. I believe that this resulted in students feeding off our energy!

Although I feel extremely proud of how this workshop went, there is always room for improvement and to improve we must recognize our weak points. I did feel that, at times, students got too excited and started side conversations. This seemed to only be prevalent nearing the end of the session when students started feeling comfortable with their classmates and us as facilitators. I believe we did a great job at managing the little side conversations and maintained our "organized chaos" of a workshop. Specifically, when a student seemed to be talking I would call on them to share about the activity or an idea. I would also playfully say to a student, "Oh, you're a troublemaker aren't you?!" or make eye contact with them while presenting so they knew when I noticed their conversations. I do believe that the conversations were due to hype in the workshop and constant switching around and not due to low engagement in the lessons.

Although it is still early in my journey, I felt like this was the first time that I was enthusiastic enough in my presentation. There is something about presenting to students that made me more enthusiastic than the lessons I have given to peers. It is also a possibility that presenting a workshop rather than a lesson became more fun to me. I will have to figure out how to harness my FLC workshop energy and bring that beautiful monster to every lesson I present!

To ask, or not to ask: That is the Question

Well, maybe not whether to ask or not, but how we ask questions. Questions are used to provoke thought processes within our students and we must ask them correctly and with purpose if we are to receive thoughtful answers in return. You guessed it, this week in our Ag Ed journey we have been reading, thinking, and questioning about questions.

The type of question we ask should always be thought about: Is this question open-ended, interrogative, rhetorical, high or low level? I've learned that even a question that is rhetorical or a question that initiates lower level thinking can be used effectively. I would assume that only high level questions that involve a lot of analysis to students are ideal. Realistically, the lower level questions can "preheat the oven" and get students started in the thinking process.

As an example, questions that initiate lower level thinking might be: What are the four compartments in a ruminant stomach? or Can you explain the process of digestion? Higher level question examples would include How would you design an ideal greenhouse? or How would you critique this class of market steers?

Bloom's Taxonomy

The second question of my lower level example would require a little more higher level thought, but the first question hits the lowest level of Bloom's Taxonomy in the remembering level. The higher level thinking questions require some basic levels of remembering the components of an ideal greenhouse or market steer, but then requires students to process how they would create or judge a class. It puts the basic knowledge with application and use of their knowledge. To the right are the levels of Bloom's Taxonomy that shows the levels of thinking based on key words like describing, creating, examining, etc. We didn't spend an immense of time this week on Bloom's, but I wanted to include it in my reflection because it will directly relate the word choice in questions to what level thinking I am encouraging in students.

We have many resources on effective questioning at our disposal. I'm learning that the question is critical, but so is how you ask it and how you present the situation. In one resource (https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/WC/WC08400.pdf), Dyer presents Goodwin et al. (1992) suggestions on how instructors should react when asking questions. An instructor should reinforce the student response, probe for further information, refocus the question, redirect the question to another student, or rephrase the question for the same student. These stuck out to me because I know that asking clear questions can be a struggle for me and these strategies can help clarify questions in a lesson as well as encourage critical thinking.

As an educator it is my job to ask students clear, purposeful questions. Providing the guiding framework of questions throughout a lesson is essential to encouraging critical thinking within students. It is also my belief that providing this framework consistently in lessons will assist students in developing the critical thinking skills themselves. Over time students will rely less on the questions asked in class and will develop their own mental process to analyze information.