National Convention: the first time outside of the jacket

Words can not describe how excited I am to be traveling to Kentucky tomorrow! Not only do I love the city, the atmosphere and the energy but getting to really know the students is what I look forward the most. Nothing like bonding on an 8 hour van ride to really meet your future students.

What really sunk into me that I am no longer a FFA member was when I started to pack and I didn't need the iconic blue corduroy jacket, it just has taken me by surprise how old I have become...I am no longer wearing the jacket I am supporting the jacket now. And after this week I will experience how amazing that is. 

Being a chaperon isn't new to me, a few weeks ago I got to experience what it's like on the other side of the table and to be honest it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I was afraid I wouldn't know where I fit but I quickly found my place and my role became clear. 

Finding my role is what I think I will struggle with the most. I feel like a student still and I am pretty sure that I look like one too so how do I make myself stand out and define my role as a student teacher? I know by dressing a few steps up places me higher yet at the same time I feel no matter how professional I dress I still look like one of those high schoolers I am responsible for. I know I am going to struggle defining my role the most however, I know that once I gain respect and I act and portray myself as the adult that I am others will see that I am not the high schooler but the advisor. 

Once I get to know the students better I believe the transition into the classroom will be so much smoother. I got to spend the whole day in the classroom today and it was great getting to talk to the students about what I had planed for the spring as well as how excited we were to travel to Kentucky. I can't wait to get into the room in January and I am confident that building respect with these core 13 students will allow me to enter the classroom with some student support. 

Tomorrow will be a new day and the beginning of a new chapter for me. I am looking forward to the experience and I know its gonna be a great week. The ride may be long at times, but I know our sing-a-longs will be on point and the bonding will be deep. National Convention has always had this amazing power to bring up my sprits and remind me why I am here today. I know after this convention everything I think I knew about convention will change. Last year getting my American degree I thought that was the best experience I would have at National Convention, but I think this week will top that experience. 

Best of luck to Albion's own Shannon Copeland on her quest to represent Pennsylvania and the Albion FFA as the national officer candidate from Pennsylvania. 

So much excitement is only hours away, and here I am in my sister's dorm room blogging away and doing last minute packing for tomorrow. 6 am is going to be here quicker than I know.

Heres to a wonderful week with an amazing FFA chapter, an exceptional advisor, and a strong group of students who have personalities unlike any I have ever known. Thank you for giving me this experience and I know it will be the best it can be! 

See ya'll in Louisville! Safe travels and good luck to all those competing! 

Make sure you check out everything I will be up to on twitter @rachie12rach and on instagram! 

Rubrics in your lab: How do they fit?

This week I got to read a little more about rubrics and how to grade laboratory classes as well as how to grade exceptional learners. I found these topics really helpful because in a few of my units I plan on presenting rubrics to grade unit projects. It was really helpful to learn there are more than a few different types of rubrics

• generic 
• task specific

Each of these two types can be broken down into two more subcategories

• analytic
• holistic 

 As a future teacher I think its important to use rubrics that are useful for me as well as my students. One way it was suggested to me is to have students at the beginning identify what are the key components they feel they should be graded on as well as what weight each should hold. In the end the teacher makes the final call but I think this is a great way to have students realize what they need to work on in their projects and what holds the most importance with their learning.






When grading students you will always have exceptional learners, and its important to modify what you present to make sure they are gaining something from you lesson. Grading systems must be high quality using standards with product criteria which addresses finals and proficiency, process their level of achievement and demonstrate the progress made what learning is gained and the value to that learning,.

When working in the laboratory setting its important to try and evaluate learners in ways other than tests and quizzes because you may not be actually testing what they have learned. Some ways to achieve this are through mind maps, rubrics and vee maps. Each area has benefits and downfalls and can be used for pre-assessment to map the progress of students, they can return to their maps after the end of the unit to add what they have learned.

Preparing our students for the real-world

"If we wish to prepare a generation of students who can solve real-world problems, we must give them real-world problems to solve"

 

Today it can be seen as hard to meet the needs of each and every students, it can also be said that we are not doing enough to prepare our students to take on the world. One way we can fix this is by using more project based learning. Do you know what project based learning is? It can be defined as students learning new material through a project, not students reviewing material to create a  project. The difference between projects and project based learning is sometimes gray but we can help define this line as well as help our students see the clear difference and the advantages of project based learning.

Edutopia is one of my favorite sites hands down, they honestly have a blog and post about everything education! Here they talk about project based learning through a school's farm, students manage the animals and decided what actions to take based on what is actually happening to their farm! Now these students are training to become farmers, they are training to become problem solvers- so a fence breaks how do we pay to repair it, do we do the labor? 

Its very important that as leaders in our field of agricultural education we emphasize them importance of project based learning. We can do this through many ways shapes and forms and the possibilities are endless...now you may ask why is project based learning so important that I am writing a blog about it, well here are the facts 

• Students often find school as boring- here is a new way to engage them
• Student remember more by researching the project, working on it, completing it and than presenting it
• The 21st century workplace requires more than just spitting out facts, it requires its workers to be handed a problem and than solve it
• Students are able to take knowledge to the next level, by developing the skills used in project based learning they can apply those skills to other areas other than the classroom
• Modern technology is often a key role in project based learning

• Teacher are better able to work one-on-one with students and give the proper amount of attention needed

 There are many types of problems we can give students to solve, and other teaching techniques play a role in project based learning as well including scaffolding. It is important to remember not to give the student to much so that he or she is overwhelmed and  discouraged but at the same time you need to challenge the minds of your students. There are three types of structure for problems ranging from well structured to ill structured  I belive it is important to only provided well structure problems.

Its important to remember not to use projects as desert but use project based learning as the main course 

Students, Money and Responsibility

What do these 3 things have in common?

Lets take a moment to think about these three topics: 

• Students, we know what those are...the tiny (most of the time) people looking up at us with bright eyes (sometimes hidden by eye lids) eager to learn (for the most part) about what ever the state deems fit (not always the most valuable lessons) you teach.
• Money, the green stuff that makes the world go round and pays us to teach said students.
• Responsibility, something we believe we all have including said students (well we sure hope so) to get up and go to work every day.

Now the connection between these 3 things may becoming more clear now but if not let me fill you in on what this blog is really about.

FINANCIAL LITERACY

Yep I said it we need to learn how to become financially responsible and we need to be teaching these skills to students. How else do we expect them to get through college? I mean we surely shouldn't leave all this on the parents to teach their kids, or on the student to figure out on their own through failures. Because that is what we are setting students up for; failure, failure to understand what a loan is, what a grant is, how to budget money, how to write a check, and how credit cards work. 
Now this is a lot to take in and you would think schools would be teaching this, but they aren't. Here is a chance for agricultural education to step in and help out those students who we care oh so much about! 

Most of us may think that oh we do SAEs students know how to budget, but do they really? It's quite different budgeting money that isn't really yours. Sure you sold your cow and used that money to buy a few more cows, but what about the feed for those new cows? You live on a farm so you put down how much it costs but you really don't need to budget for that cost. See where I am getting at? We may think we got the skills down on how to make a budget but we really don't fully understand. 

How can we fix this problem? Well there are many ways to address the issue and HELP our students, our future workers, the next generation. 

There are so many resources out there on how to teach these different topics, there are lessons already written, and we have the chance to make this happen. SO what do we focus on? Coming from the stand point of I didn't know how to write a check (yeah I know I should have learned when I got my first check book). I learned the hard way, I sent in a check and guess what it came back because I didn't do it right...I learned but it would have been so much better for me if I learned in High School so I didn't enter college a complete fool.

Another skill we need to focus on is the difference between loans, grants, and scholarships. Because I still don't know all the definitions and I'm about ready to graduate. Now it would have been awesome if I could have had the chance to learn in high school so I was better prepared to pay for college. Next we need to talk about credit and how it works. We need to understand that credit can make or break you. I still don't have a credit card because I don't feel comfortable having one. I know I need one to buy a car or buy a house but how do I start credit? Now I think if I had training in high school I would be a confident young adult.

I think I understand being financially responsible but based on what I know about everything else with financial literacy I'm probably not...sadly. So how can students work on budget? Well we can have them do their SAE, true, but that's not "real" money all the time. Sadly I don't know of a great way to do this? Maybe use class "money" which isn't "real" but use this money to buy homework passes, get points, earn money by doing extra work, invest in credit, invest in projects. Wow this might be something? Is going to FFA events work?  Can I get paid to have fun? YES! (teach ag) 


From what I have gathered there are a lot of resources out there... Here are just a few I found helpful and want to save for when I get into my own classroom. 
There are also a great amount of videos out there 
Like this one!  an online game? Now I think students would like this! It brings up a lot of good talking points and shows the value of money.

http://www.financialeducatorscouncil.org/financial-literacy-students/

http://www.cfs.wisc.edu/briefs/cfs_research_brief_2012-5.2.pdf

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/high-school-financial-literacy-resources-brian-page

http://www.bbt.com/bbtdotcom/financial-education/planning/financial-literacy.page

Now I'm asking you for help! Please help me teach my students how to be financially confident and literate. Help me help our future generations!

Community Gardens; why should you care?

A community garden can be just about anything, a few tomato plants you have in raised flower beds all the way to a large garden full of different fruits and vegetables. Now you may ask why should your FFA chapter create one? Well the list goes on and on with the benefits of a garden in your community here are just a few

• Allows the community to work with your students
• Hands on Experience  
• Gain connections through out the community
• A chance for a service learning project where students can continuously give back and enhance their communities
• It gives your program publicity and a chance to showcase what your students can do
• A garden helps teach nutritional values, not only do community members get a chance to consume fresh food, your students have the opportunity to  use this interaction as a teachable moment to show why its important to eat fresh fruits and vegetables 
• An opportunity to teach students about landscaping, farming techniques, as well as the chance to show students how to use what they have to make what they want
• A community garden gives not only your students a sense of ownership but it also gives that same thing to your community members that help take care of it or use it.
   
  Did you know it is proven that community gardens reduce crime rates that statistic has a large impact on me! 

Community gardens have so many benefits for not only your students, classroom, community, and school. Why would you let this chance slip away?

Now if you think wow community gardens cost a lot to start up...don't you fret if you are an FFA chapter you have the chance to apply for the Food For All Grant through National FFA 

For more information don't hesitate to turn to your local extension program for help getting a garden started or help maintaining one.

For a chance to talk more about community gardens come check out Genius Hour here at Penn State in Ferguson 214 @ 8am! Or to follow up away from campus be sure to check out my tweets using #TeachAgGenius

"Educators should be champions of every student who enters the schoolhouse doors."

Mind blown about differentiated instruction, I knew there was a teaching technique that focused on  different types of learning but I didn't necessarily connect the dots with it being differentiated instruction, I also didn't realize the amount of research put into this type of instruction. I know its very important and critical in the classroom and after reading more about it the research backs what we have been taught. There is just so much to talk about after reading just one article let alone the three others I found. So to highlight some key things you may(not) have known.

• There are 3 characteristics of learners- readiness, interests and preferences.
• Differentiated Instruction can be traced back to the 1600's! Wow they knew what they were doing back then, why can't we get it together now?
• All differentiated instruction is based on the same curriculum expectations (unless an IEP is involved) this means you don't have to write 25 different lesson plans, you just write one!
• You simply have to select a variation of instructional approaches 
• All learners what to feel like they get to make the choices when it comes to their learning, by giving them the chance to make decisions they will put more effort into their learning
• This can be done by letting them- Pick if they want to work alone or in groups, decided the order of assignments being due for a large project and allowing them to answer one question on the assessment by either writing or drawing.
• However you must make sure all choices are assessed the same way across the board!  
  
  
  

Now you know a little more about differentiated learning! Woot Woot! Unfortunately there is so much more to learn about the subject and I know as future educator there is so much to learn about everything and there is not enough time in the day...so I think its important to take everything in moderation and slowly incorporate more and more teaching techniques and variability into each lesson. 

Differentiated instruction is an important part of any lesson plan and I believe is important and will fall into place easily with a little per-planning.

If you want to read more about this interesting topic feel free to check out these sites I found when researching the topic.

A history of differentiated instruction

A brief over view

A BIG read on differentiated instruction in the Ag class room

Have a wonderful week and be sure to check back for more!

Unit Planning...

I really appreciated having to write our unit plans so soon in our journey of becoming a teacher. It was great seeing what I was made of and then having the chance to learn about writing proper objectives and how to make lessons better. I also liked getting to read two of my peers, it not only gave me great ideas on how to make mine better but giving the constructive criticism also gave me the chance to see what my weak points are.  I did my unit plan on Pesticide Education in my Landscaping class. 

Some changes I will be making from my peers suggestions is making my objectives stronger as well as adding more. When I gave them my unit plan, I knew that was going to be my biggest downfall. However, we had some instruction on how to make great objectives and I have now gone back and created more as well as made my existing ones stronger.  A second change I made was to spell out the standards, I have now become aware you have to write them out and I have made that change. I also lacked a few parts of the plan and need to make sure I have all my quizzes prepared. A few points were not made clear such as the certification for pesticide education as well as the career options or why this unit is important. I have made changes to these areas and the part about becoming certified is still in the air…I’m working on it.

  

With this great feedback from my peers I think my unit plan is very solidly built now and I’m ready to take on the next. Having so many great resources to pull from I am confident that my lessons and unit plans are going to be amazing and I actually enjoy making them! Crazy right? I enjoy homework now, good thing I want to do this for the rest of my life. I can’t wait to get started on the next and I know I have a great support system willing to help me along the way! It’s been a great 6 weeks and the next 9 are only going to be better. So ready or not unit plans here I come!

 

            Now for something a little extra!
                                                 Check out this link on lesson plan tips!

                                                               Or this one for unit plan templates and advice! 

Till Next Time,

Have a wonderful weekend!