Learning With Purpose and People

Learning with a Purpose

Objectives have been apart of my academic journey since first grade. I remember teachers always pointing to them, stating them, or having them written somewhere in the classroom. Never understanding why objectives were so important and why a teacher took the time everyday to state them, if they did, but in my journey from moving from the student to the teacher I now find and understanding the meaning and purpose in writing objectives. In recognizing my lack of understanding of the importance of objectives as a student I want to incorporate the meaning behind objectives into my first day of school. 

Through my experience, objectives can be briefed through, unacknowledged, or non-existent, but through my college career I have learned that objectives are planned purposefully for each day. Their importance and function has been highlighted through my college career AEE classes, recently in unit and lesson planning, and researched based articles. In remembering properly written objectives have three parts:

                                           

                                         Behavior 

                                         Conditions

                                         Criteria 

... int he process of formulating daily objectives Bloom's Taxonomy challenges teachers to push students to higher levels of thinking. In reminiscing over this, I want to incorporate different orders of thinking for each of the daily objectives I write. To the left is a chart of Bloom's Taxonomy of verbs I found that I utilized in writing my first unit plan this past week and after this week's reading I understand the relationship between Bloom's, objectives, and verb usage.

I then went onto Pinterest to find different ways that teachers post their objectives and I found one I want to replicate. To the right is a picture of frame paper where the teacher writes the objective on the frame each day. I chose this because I can align the color and design of paper with each class and/or each unit. I also want to assign a student each week to write the objectives for that class on the frame and then introduce them to the class. 

The idea of purposefully planning for each day is a reoccurring theme for many topics we have discussed in our student teacher journey so far. Objectives is one example of this in addition to intention planning of instructions which was discussed in the book, "Methods of Teaching Agriculture". Talking and discussion comes natural for many people, but who would have thought teachers sit down and take the time to plan an entire discussion? I address this topic because I came across the graphic below of meaningful questions to ask as a teacher as well as students can ask each other during group work. I want to make this into a poster to have in my classroom. 

The First Day of School {Lab}

"What's the soundtrack of your life?"

After our first lab I set four goals for myself to focus on improving for the First Day of School lab. To improve my teaching ability, I revisited and evaluated my goals below.

My goals for this lab were:
1. Filter and control my energy throughout the lesson
2. Conduct a practice run prior to teaching
3. Before deciding on a teaching method for the lesson, look up examples on external websites
4. Slow my pace of speech down

Goal #1:
This goal was where I really focused on improving for this lab. For the first day of school I wanted to have a balance of seriousness while introducing my expectations, procedures, and consequences in addition to cultivating an upbeat, comfort, and fun atmosphere for my students. I deem this goal accomplished for the day, but one that I cannot forget because of my personality. [Also, one minor detail that I noticed was my caffeine intake. Last time I started my day with coffee, and I am not an everyday coffee drinker, and making one small decision like that made me jittery and amped up. So for this lab I had no coffee and it helped a lot.]

Goal #2:
If I am being honest with myself, I did not stand up, time myself, and deliver my lesson plan like I would present it in a class. This lack of preparation was noticeable when I could not formulate the right questions or transition smoothly. I did read through my lesson out loud which was a step more then last time, but I want to be prepared because I expect my students to be and I do not want them to lose out on opportunities to learn.

Goal #3:
This was fun to do and extremely beneficial. I did not get my lesson idea from doing this, but it help kickstart my creative juices. Watching a First Day of Class video from a past student was helpful because I was able to read the comments and watch a teacher perform verses reading words on a document. This goal was met.

Goal #4:
This goal was unmet. This was one area where I only slightly improved from week one but have a lot of room for improvement.

So this week...

I went into this week's lab with a mindset of trying to incorporate all of the ideas, strategies, and modalities we have learned in AEE 412 into the lesson. It was difficult to incorporate everything into the 15 minute class I taught so I am very excited to implement this lesson into my Leadership unit. Speaking of which, I developed my first full lesson plan which took a lot longer then I thought, but understand the importance of detail and completion of the entire lesson plan. In preparation for the lab, the detail of my lesson plan was beneficial, but as soon as I started to teach I got lost in it and went from memory. For next week I need to adjust my layout so that I can locate what I need in my lesson plan when I teach from it.

After watching my video and reading some of the written feedback I was impressed with the accuracy of my peer and teacher evaluations. My reaction after lab was that I feel uncomfortable in a classroom setting with students staring at me. When I looked at the students while talking a stumbled on my words and questions. An observation I made from watching my video was that my clarity in directions was weak. For Activity 2, my explanation was all over the place and high school students would have stared at me blankly.

Some other external feedback that was given was to:

- State my objectives

- Use signal words to direct students to an action

- Slow my pace of speech down

I knew half way through my lesson that I forgot to state my objectives and I made the decision to not knowledge them and believe that hanging them on the wall would be good enough at that point. I am not sure I made the right decision though? Also, using signal words is not a concept that I ever considered before, but after watching a fellow classmate utilize that tactic in her lesson and execute it successfully, I saw the power behind it.

If I could re-teach this class I would focus on my public speaking 101. The pace of my speech and my hand gestures need to be slowed down and controlled. I think with slowing my pace of speech down I would take the time to be more clear in giving directions, it would eliminate some of the filler words, and improve the fluidity of my transitions. Something I picked up from watching the video that I did not realize I did was that I say my students names when addressing them or calling on them to answer. I found this to be very positive for the atmosphere I was trying to cultivate.

Next week is the interest approach lab. If you are reading this blog and have any great ideas that have worked for you, I would enjoy hearing them! For the Interest approach lab my goals are:

1. Slow my pace of speech down
2. Utilize my hand and body gestures effectively and at appropriate times
3. Practice my lesson one time before I present it
4. Think about and incorporate the minor details that make a lesson function smoothly (Ex. action words, e-moments)

Preventing the Head Nod {Student Engagement}

Past:

The most engaging classes I ever sat through were in fifth grade during our unit on the Wagon Train. For the duration of the unit we sat in pods as a "Wagon" and each day we encountered different obstacles we needed to conquer. The room was decorated with mountainous scenery and there was an actual covered wagon in the classroom. Each day the teacher would read us the scenario and then we would be given certain supplies to solve the problem with. We had to keep journals of our travel, bargin with the other wagons for food and supplies, and on the last day we had a celebration for making the trip. The Wagon Train unit theme was utilized throughout all our other subjects as well. 

Why am I talking about my fifth grade Wagon Train experience? Because it was the one unit I learned more about my fifth grade year then any other. I could probably repeat the experience in a classroom today! I did not like school because I academically struggled, but I loved everyday of the Wagon Train unit. I reflect on this experience, especially after our weekly readings because it was my turning point of my desire to learn. Learning can be enjoyable, and who's job is it to create that enjoyment? 

Present:
Starting the transition from student to teacher, I reflect back on the positive and negative experiences I had with being engaged as a student. I know I learned and retained the most when I was engaged by how the teacher taught more so then what was being taught. Engagement is a choice I make as an educator everyday. 

The book Teach Like a Pirate (TLAP), written by Dave Burgess says, "It does not matter how much material you teach, it matters how much is received". How am I going to teach in a way that is engaging to my students? Here are a few starting pieces that are needed everyday in class to be an engaging educator:

1. Fluidity in transitions

2. Hooks/Interest approaches

3. Being prepared

Expanding on that question, "How am I going to teach in a way that is engaging to my ALL my students?. We started unpacking the answer to this question in our AEE 412 class by identifying and discussing multiple intelligences and the 3 domains to learning. By incorporating a few of the several multiple intelligences into my lessons and consistently applying different domains of learnings, my students will hopefully be dialed in because they are learning in a way that fits their learning style and interests. 

Future:
To prevent the head nod and glazed over eyes, I want to challenge myself to remember what being in the shoes of the student is like and to make the choice to develop and deliver an engaging lesson everyday. I am going to be the one to make class enjoyable and engage each student. My Wagon Train experience included components such as setting-up the environment, instruction, enthusiasm, consistency, and hands-on application all planned purposefully. 

The article 5 Ways to Engage Students presents what seem to be simple but powerful ways to keep students engaged on a day to day basis. These techniques can be applied to any subject or lesson being taught. The first way is to use a 1:1 device. I know during student teaching I am going into a 1:1 program where students each have their own computers. Simply having the student take out their computers, log into twitter, and tweet one thought or reaction they had to the lesson could be a check-in point as well as an engagement technique. Another technique that is brought up in TLAP as well as on this website is to keep content relevant. Know what is going on in the world, what is trendy with your students and make the connections.

Katie's Bubbles - Teacher Learner Connection

The weekly writing's readings this week had a consistent theme of the connection between teachers and students to achieve successful learning. Tactics, ideas, and theories were shared in a variety of situations to provide understanding to best practices and strategies to achieve success in an agricultural program.

Below I am going to share out a few of my thought bubbles that formed during the readings.

1. "Intimidation is not just how you earn respect and control... so its not just being tough?"
               - Through my athletic experiences intimidation stemmed from respect of another team's or individual player's ability to perform. Instilling confidence within students, of your ability as an agriculture educator ,will gain respect and trust which I predict will help with class management.

2. "I am going to be making a lot of friends... good thing I like to talk"
                 - In the Methods of Teaching Agriculture, Part 1 there are approximately 15 pages on with whom, you as the agricultural teacher, should engage with. Students, parents, administrators, other teachers, industry personnel, Advisory Council, Alumni of the program, and the list goes on. It sounds overwhelming and sometimes not possible with only 24 hours in a day, but knowing that I teach students and each of these people listed are vital to their individual success and my programs' success, forming relationships is a key goal to set within my first year teaching.

3. "Learning really is a lifelong process"
               -  After reading the four stages of teaching it is enticing to want to obtain impact NOW!  Remembering that through continual learning I can climb my way up the leader to achieve this.

4. "There is no way the first year of teaching can be a happy experience... has this person actually taught before?"
              - You know what, why reinvent the wheel? This was my thought after the reading the "key to teaching success is beg, borrow, and steal". There are an infinite number of resources available that will save time which can be spent doing something else... maybe forming relationships? Happiness is a choice and starting this semester I am going to utilize the resources at my disposal.

5. "How do you do it all?!"
             - Reading the effective teacher qualities was important to understand the student's perspective of what they want and need from me to be successful learners. I feel confident to check off some of my innate characteristics such as humor, enthusiasm, variability, and task-oriented/business behavior, but what is exciting is that I now have goals for each lab. I want to focus on effective questioning, structuring comments, avoiding criticism, and clarity.

All of these readings reminded me that agriculture educators have a lot on their plates. To be effective agriculture educator I need to remember who we are teaching and why we are teaching them. Wong says, "The effective teacher affects lives" and is that not what we are striving for, impact of students lives? To this point my mindset has largely revolved around "what content am I presenting" and "how am I presenting it?" Looking forward I want to think "how am I being an effective teacher?" "What am I intentionally doing and saying to benefit my learners?"

Checking out edutopia.org through high recommendations, here is an article titled "5 Highly Effective Teaching Strategies" that drives home what our weekly readings discussed but also includes "metacognition strategies" as an effective teaching strategy which was a new concept supports ownership in student learning.

Reflective Teaching Lesson (RTL)

      The purpose of today's lab was to give our professor's a baseline of where our ability to teach currently is. We each randomly chose a topic and had to teach and assess the students (our classmates) in a 15 minute timeframe. My goal was to have the class learn 11 parts of a Flint Arrowhead and be able to match them on an assessment. 

Flint Arrowhead

      My initial thought after executing my lesson was "Did I breath? The answer is no. I have a tendency to be high energy and take things at a face pace. Well as soon as I finished teaching I knew I did not filter any of my energy constructively, but went 100 mph through the entire lesson. This was confirmed after reading student assessments and watching my video recording. Unfortunately with the fast pace and high energy combination, my directions were presented unclearly, I was reactive instead of intentional in what I said, and the students did not learn the content as effectively as they could have. 

      What I and the students thought I did well was engage the audience. The high energy presented downfalls but being the last lesson of the day, I woke the students up and made them more reactive to me. I also felt prepared with my materials and content. I knew what I needed to do and I had the materials to do it, but the time constraint did not allow me to utilize my preparedness, and vice versa, I did not utilize the 15 minutes to the best of my ability. 

      In deciding on the presentation method of the lesson, after watching the video I saw my game would have been better suited as a review game. The students had no prior knowledge and I was enforcing quick guessing with no opportunity to think. The mind reactivity I needed would be best utilized once the information is learned and retained. 

      If I were to do this again, I would go simpler and slower with the timeframe allotted. In learning new content, repetition is key and I failed to include that in my teaching approach. In deciding on HOW to teach, I need to decided on the best suited teaching method to achieve my objective, instead of always choosing to answer and fulfill the question, "What will the students enjoy most?". 

      So below are [my goals] for the next lesson I teach:

1. Filter and control my energy throughout the lesson

2. Conduct a practice run prior to teaching

3. Before deciding on a teaching method for the lesson, look up examples on external websites

4. Slow my pace of speech down

Cooperating Center Video

Big Spring Bull Dogs

During the spring of 2016 I will have the opportunity to student teach alongside Ms. Sherisa Nailor and Ms. Sarabeth Fulton at Big Spring High School located in Newville, PA. To learn more about the high school and the FFA program watch the video below:

That's a Wrap!

And just like that 91 days flew by.

Let me sum up my summer as the New Holland Network Development (ND) intern:

Project #1: Updating a previously written manual to articulate the ND departments current strategies, tactics, systems, operations, and functions.

Title:  "Understanding the Strategy & Role of Dealer Network Development"

Total Work Time: 91 days

Pages: 68

Words: 9, 264

Sections: 6

Scheduled Editing Sessions: 10

 

Status: COMPLETE!

 

Project #2: Update the policies in Dealer Policy Manual to validate the Dealer Agreement.

 

   Total Policies to Update: 9

Total Work Time: 3 hours per week

Collaboration: 12+ people



 

Status: 90% complete; waiting on external party validation

 

 

Added Value Experiences:

 

- Baltimore Port Trip

          Purpose: to learn about the process and management of importing and exporting equipment

 

Cranes seen during the water tour of the Baltimore Harbor

 - Photoshoot

          Purpose: to be hands on with the Marketing and Brand Communications departments in creation of effective promotion & advertisement

 

 

- Traveling with Northeastern Market Representation Manager (MRM)

          Purpose: to learn how the ND strategies and plans are carried out in the field in addition to career shadowing a field employee

 

 

New Holland Internship Program Activities:

 

- Family Farm Days

           An annual 3-day community event to promote agriculture which New Holland sponsors. As an intern I was a tour guide, tractor driver, ice cream scooper, and loaded and unloaded wagons.

 

Loading wagons at Oregon Dairy's Family Farm Days

 - Hershey Park

           The sweetest place on earth for chocolate and amusement park rides.

 

The Sweetest Place on Earth

 - Building 39 Softball Team (CHAMPIONS)

            Wednesday evening company softball, where I hit my first home run and the team brought home the trophy.

Team #3

- Ride and Drive

             Test drove pieces of equipment from Case and New Holland Brands.

 

New Holland Windrower

 

So the question remains... Would I come back?!

 

The answer is YES, and for 4 reasons:

 

1. The people

2. Company culture & environment

3. Opportunity to travel

4. Positional & departmental movement

 

Coming into New Holland as an Ag. Ed. major, my goal was to discover if I could and would want to make it in a corporate world. Prior to the internship I did not think I had what it took, mostly due to my lack of accounting and financial background. I thought everyone needed to be a numbers wiz to survive and excel in a corporation. Man, I was wrong. It takes people from all different academic backgrounds to make a corporation purr.

 

Working through my main project, the manual, I realized that my skill sets and personality was the right fit for the ND departments internship project. I was able to take previously developed skills and utilize as well as enhance them. For example, written communication. I was challenged to write technically and not creativity. In addition, I learned functions of Microsoft PowerPoint, Excel, and Word that I did not know existed. Having "experts" all around me that utilize these programs and their functions everyday was a blessing when trying to be efficient in formatting a document. Lastly, developing, implementing, and executing the process of the manual was a skill that I learned. Having the support of my managers along the way, I not only created the manual but developed a multi-step, two-phase process to implement and execute.

 

To wrap it all together, my managers guided this Ag. Ed. major through a comprehensive project of taking someone of zero knowledge to being able to articulate processes, systems, operations, and functions of an entire department in 91 days. I am excited to have completed the manual but more appreciative of the willingness and time each person invested into me to make sure I was fully equipped to accomplish my project. The project allowed me to interact with various personnel throughout New Holland as well as get to know my department extremely well. New Holland equipped me with confidence to pursue the corporate world as well as with skills that I can utilize my last year of college and into a career.