Weekly Insights
Good public relations is essential for community to support you as the agriculture teacher and the agriculture program in general. Without the community, the program cannot be successful.
There seems to be a common understanding that being an agriculture teacher necessarily means that you are absurdly busy at any given point during the year. We try to do so many things with involving the community, catering to the desires of administration, FFA events, Farm Show and fair events... the list goes on. I fear that there is so much pressure to do everything that we will fail them right. I am not really sure, but I can recognize the need for the agriculture teachers to delegate responsibility to others to ensure that they are not working alone and wearing themselves too thin.
Daily Summaries
Monday - Farm Show was a great learning experience see my Mid-winter Convention blog for more details
Tuesday - Early release due to weather. I observed all of the classes. All students are working on finishing their mid-term posters which are due on Friday or Wednesday.
Wednesday - School Canceled
Thursday - I facilitated the Ag Leadership class in preparing them for the Junior and Senior Prepared Public Speaking CDE. I think that it went really well as I helped them select a topic to speak on based on their experiences and interests.
Friday - Mr. Biddle was at Farm Show so I was the Ag teacher for the day. The students finished up their posters and I taught a lesson on delivering a speech. The students are off to a good start. They have chosen their topics and are doing some research about their topic. Over the next couple weeks we will work on writing an effective speech and delivering it.
Upcoming Week
I will be taking over facilitating the Horticulture class and will co-teach with Mr. Biddle the Ag Leadership class. The Introduction to Agriculture classes will present their posters and have a quiz on the information each student shares about their poster (we will create the quiz and take 1-2 questions from each student). The Animal Science class will be finishing up their posters and presenting them this week as well.
Monday - There is no school for students but is to be used as a day to grade midterms.
Tuesday
- Horticulture - Finish Posters
- Ag Leadership - Farmshow reflection
Wednesday
- Horticulture - "Jigsaw" Activity with posters. Students will present and assess each others posters.
- Ag Leadership - Complete their manuscript outline. Lesson on speech structure.
Thursday
- Horticulture - Quiz on information from poster presentations. Select seeds from a seed catalog that will be used in the milk jug greenhouse project
- Ag Leadership - Effective speech introductions. Complete draft of speech introductions.
Friday
- Horticulture - Introduction to the milk jug project and setup for the project
- Ag Leadership - SUCCES for effective speeches. Practice their speeches in from of each other.
Concerns/Questions
It is sort of weird being in someone else's classroom. They have their way of doing things and at least with Mr. Biddle it seems to be going very well. I have different a educational philosophy when it comes to some approaches, but recognize that I don't have experience teaching and so I want to gain as much insight from a veteran teacher as possible and then when I have my own classroom I can start to integrate some of the ideas that I would like to try out.
Michael,
ReplyDeleteI look forward to seeing future blogs and your reflections; especially, on topics such as your thoughts on how your teaching philosophy changes, after experiencing more time with your students. You eluded to some of this near the end of your blog, but I would be interested in hearing more on this, and other specific topics in future blog posts.
- Dr. Ewing
That's awesome that you are teaching this week! I hope it's not too overwhelming. My cooperating center and I have planned on me teaching starting next week, but they mentioned me starting early and I think they could sense my fear. So kudos to you.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I've really used this week as a time to ask as many questions as possible. I sometimes feel like a little kid always asking "Why?" but they answer all my questions and we engage in a great discussion on their philosophy. There are some things that I might change in my classes, but I think just initiating that conversation with your CT will help clarify things. There is nothing wrong with doing your own things. I think your students will respect your rules (when implemented correctly) because they recognize that different teachers all across the school have different management practices. So don't think that just because you're in Mr. Biddle's class means you need to follow his every move.