2014 FFA Week

As FFA week came to a close, I left the school Friday with my very first FFA shirt proudly sporting the words "Oley Valley FFA" and the sense that the whole school district was reminded about the impacts and accomplishments this FFA Chapter has made on students and their community. After just a short three-day school week, this weekend will be a well-earned refresh time! The officers did an awesome job organizing a spirit week and free t-shirts for all the members to wear. Also, the chapter hung FFA logos all over the school with students' names on them which they could then turn in at lunch for free icecream....that of course went over super well!! The officers also attended the school board meeting to make announcements and hand school board members thank you baskets (filled with donated, local ag products). Finally, the week concluded with a well-attended teacher breakfast Friday morning, and I was thrilled to see a huge crew of FFA members there to help!

Here's how teaching went this week: 

Monday: No School for President's Day

Tuesday: Snow day

Wednesday:

An Sci- Today we review equine parts and then continued to learn about horse conformation. I had a short lecture and then had the students rotate through stations to identify the different conformation faults. It went super well!

Ag Enviro- I am beginning to talk about climate change, but first we are learning about the reasons for different climates around the world. As a class activity, we held the "climate Olympics" which students were put into groups (countries) and were assigned a topic to become experts on and teach their peers in some creative way. We ran out of class time but we will continue tomorrow with this activity. It is taking a whole period longer than I expected, but I like how it's going! Plus both classes are doing well with it!

Thursday:

An Sci- Today we presented the horse sports project and had some great discussions. Other than the initial struggles with iMovie, they turned out very well. We also had some great discussions...until the cockroach walked across the floor...

Ag Enviro- Continuation of Climate Olympics. We also used turn tables and expo markers to learn the Coriolis Effect. The first session loved this. The second session thought it was completely stupid...interesting.

Friday:

An Sci- Today we continued presenting our horse sport projects. I had the students pick their own partners for this project. While this is risky, it worked really well for this class! I also talked about my summer living in Belgium riding for Karen Donckers as she prepared for the London 2012 Olympics. Story time!

Ag Enviro- Today we talked about El Nino. My interest approach involved a student volunteer comparing hot and cold water in two mugs and talking about evaporation. We also had a great discussion about how this effected the US corn prices in 2011 and 2012. It was great! Although my powerpoint was terribly confusing for them, so I completely changed it for the second session and it was much better.

Week 5 Overview

PA's Horse Racing Industry is HUGE!

What a crazy winter this has been! It was a three day teaching week, with one day even having a two-hour delay. This type of weather has made it difficult for all teachers, but I am especially challenged with connecting concepts with students with all these gap days and shortened periods, as well as general planning difficulties. That was one of my biggest challenges in general this week: planning appropriately! I have soooo much planned everyday and for the week and then I feel like we are moving so slow, although I do know that it is better to have fuller student understanding than cover a broader range of topics.

MONDAY:

• ·         AnSci- Work day for their Horse Sport Projects. They are working in pairs to create an iMovie of the horse sport of their choice. The students did make progress, but I was not able to answer all of their technical problems. I was very frustrated with this as the instructor and spent time afterwards throughout the day seeking help of other faculty in the school to REALLY figure these iMovie questions out.
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• ·         Ag Enviro- Work day for their Air Pollution Projects. They each chose an air pollutant source and made a powerpoint on their topic. This went great! I was really happy with what they turned in. I also loved using Edmodo to assign the project and digitally ‘collect’ their assignment.

TUESDAY:

• ·         AnSci- We continued with the overview of equine industry and how it connects to agriculture. We also spent a lot of time learning about PA’s horse racing industry.
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• ·         Ag Enviro- We went out to the lab to set up and begin our acid rain lab that we will be observing for the next two weeks. I divided the class into assigned four groups. There were four plants, each receiving watering with a different pH. Students were to design a chart to test the pH of the liquid for each plant, take plant observations, and make a hypothesis of what will happen to each plant. Each group rotated through the four plants. For the first period, it was great! The second session had some dishonesty with groups, as I found too many friends working with friends. I had to address this issue.

WEDNESDAY:

• ·         AnSci- What a great class session!! We were learning horse parts, and with this very quite class, I was able to get them awake and having a ton of fun! It was a very interactive class and I even had them sit on top of their desks. This idea literally blew their mind, but it was perfect for the activity.
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• ·         Ag Enviro- This was a catch up day to finish off air pollution. I used a lot of short YouTube clips which kept them engaged and stirred up some good discussion afterwards. Also I gave them a practice quiz that they were not too fond of, but I think it was good for them to check their understanding. I struggle with handling a lot of off-topic questions in my second session class. I’m still trying to figure out how to handle this. 

Record Book Contest: Professional Development Opportunity

High concentration zone!

The Thursday school dismissal bell rang and a 'record book grading army' across the state of Pennsylvania was doing their last checks on substitute plans for Friday before they headed to State College for the Record Book Contest. Being new to this scene, I was impressed by the organization system and the crowd of helpful people. It was a great opportunity to talk to teachers across the state and also get a better understanding of the benefits of record books for the students. I was also impressed by the financial support of the event by the Center (even great food!)....how cool.

My 'take-aways' from the event: 

• I really like hearing different opinions about the two record book systems. I plan to use the AET system in the future. It seems more straightforward once it is understood, and it has so many extra benefits. I love that it is so easy for students to update it from anywhere...making it easier for them to actually keep them updated! 
• I like the idea of having ALL students keep a record book on something. Of course we want to encourage them to achieve high, but even if they can't think of ANYTHING, they can even take records on their sports activities or even their video game hobby. No excuses! They will probably find out that it would be more exciting to get more creative with their record book topic. 
• Wow, ag teachers have great stories!! The story-telling times were awesome :) 

Week 3: Getting Into the Groove of Things

And so completes Week #3 at Oley Valley, and everything is on the up curve. I really believe this was a perfect choice for a cooperating center and am so appreciative of all the support I am getting! Also, the students are great overall. 

Monday: Snow Day
Tuesday: 2-hour Delay

Animal Science

• Began teaching Animal Science with the Equine Unit
• Because of the shortened periods, this period consisted of my introduction activity and an overview of my classroom procedures, expectations, and consequences. For the introduction activity, I had them draw three things that describe them. Even though the class was older, they really enjoyed this activity. Plus I got to know each one a little better.

Ag Environmental 

• I continued with the health effects of air pollution and also began talking about indoor air pollution. 
• I also did an activity with the two periods: in the first period, it was a success; in the second period, it was a huge classroom management failure! I had the students walk around the ag facility and observe and take notes with their group about different ventilation and equipment to handle indoor air pollution in the labs. For the first class, it led to great discussion; however, the 2nd period is much larger and has many socialites in it. Unfortunately, 2nd period was completely confused and distracted. I need to make sure my directions are completely clear and also lay out clear expectations. 

Wednesday: Snow Day
Thursday: Best Student Teaching Day So Far! 

Today was the day that things really started to click! What a great feeling! I have so much to improve on, and I was getting really frustrated, but today things started flowing. I introduced my equine science unit to the Animal Science class, my favorite topic area, and began with a great interest approach by showing them my polocrosse racket and talking about the sport. I had their attention for the rest of the class!
Today in Ag Environmental, we finished talking about air pollution, but I started the lesson off with snow! How do snow and air pollution relate. Also, this interest approach really did its job :) Good interest approaches ARE important!

Friday: Professional Development --> Record Book Contest

Today, I both my class working on their projects: air pollution powerpoint project and equine sport iMovie.
(More on this day in the next blog post!)