My Ag Ed Journey

One important thing that I knew before the readings for this week’s assignment is that all questions are not the same. Some questions can really get people thinking about a certain topic while others are simply answering the question. For example, by asking your students what color a leaf if then they will likely answer green. However, if you ask your students why the leaf is green, they will have to think of the proper answer. By providing my students with more complex questions I hope to help to exercise their minds so that they learn to use more critical thinking skills. One question strategy that I think I will try to implement in my classes are using the five W’s to get my students thinking about the topic. By using who, what, when, where and why questions I hope to increase my students thinking on the topic. These questions encourage the students to think more deeply about a topic beyond the surface level. By asking questions that make students think then we can get a ...

Interest Approach: Using Macroinvertebrates to Assess Water Quality This week’s assignment was pretty fun to set up. I set up an activity that I felt would be a good way to introduce students to macroinvertebrates in a safe and clean manner. While also introducing them to how biologist use macroinvertebrates to assess the quality of a water body. My classmates also seemed to enjoy this activity. However, there were a few things that I noticed about this activity that I would need to fix and am in the process of fixing. The first is that I was not clear on the directions right off the bat. This could lead to confusion amongst my students. As it also confused me, because I wasn’t quite sure what I had already told them. To fix this issue I will be putting the instructions into the presentation, as well as verbally giving them to my students before the activity starts. By doing so I hope to alleviate confusion for both myself and my students. The second thing I would like to...

This week’s readings show the importance of not only varying your teaching methods but also choosing the right teaching method for the content and available time. The readings also included how the objectives of a lesson can affect the format of the lesson. Based on what you want your students to get from the lesson the objectives can help you to frame the lesson. When creating your objectives, you will need to take into account the mastery that you want your students to have over a specific topic. Once you know how well you want your students to understand a concept you can use Bloom’s Taxonomy to create your objectives. With objectives using higher cognitive skills being connected to higher points within bloom’s taxonomy. Group work can help your students to achieve the objectives of the lesson depending upon the students’ background knowledge of the topic. If it is a topic that they already know fairly well or have some background knowledge of having them work together can help ...

First Day of School During this lab experience, I presented a lesson for the first day of Ag 7. Overall I think the lesson went well I didn’t feel as uncomfortable during this lesson as I did during the first lab or previous presentations that I have given. This lesson was simply to introduce agricultural science to seventh-grade students. One thing that did happen was that my classmates misinterpreted what grade this class was for. As the grade was misinterpreted my classmates did not react as they likely would have if they had known the age group. In spite of this, the lesson continued and seemed to go over well with my classmates. Due to this experience, I realized that I need to work on my clarity so that I can avoid misunderstandings while I am student teaching. Clarity is very important to present a good lesson, if you are not clear to your audience then they are unlikely to completely understand you. By providing more clarity I hope to present better lessons to my studen...

Learner Variability and Lesson Planning All learners have methods by which they learn best. Some individuals learn best through testing themselves with flashcards, others through recitation and some through physically performing either the task they are trying to learn or a set of movements related to it. Due to the differences in learning styles not all lessons are going to work well with all students, as their learning style doesn’t work in the same way as the lesson. One of the best ways to combat this difference in learning style and the lesson is to vary the way that different lessons are presented. By doing so learners with different learning styles will all get a chance to learn in the way that best fits them. One effective way to insert lessons using different learning styles is by using E-Moments. E-Moments are short learning activities that are interactive ways to gauge how well your students are learning. These e-moments can be used as a check for understanding...

Teaching and Learning While there are many connections between student teaching and the assigned readings, I feel that the following may connect the best. The first is learning to use different methods of teaching and learning to improve your educational environment. Learning new methods for teaching and learning is key to becoming a good teacher. Good teachers not only use a variety of teaching methods they also find the methods that work best for themselves and their students. This will improve the educational environment for both the teachers and the students.   By varying my future teaching methods, I will be able to create a more interactive and engaging environment for my students. The second connection is how the regular use of different teaching methods will create a more enriching educational environment. A part of the use of different methods for teaching and learning is related to the planning of daily activities with students. By planning different types of lesso...

Effective Teaching and Learning What is effective teaching? To me, effective teaching is using your knowledge, skills, and resources to teach your students the course material in a way that the information will stick with them long term. Effective teaching takes many forms as to how you teach effectively varies with the circumstances of the lesson, for example, an effective lesson for high school students, on a given topic, would not be taught in the same way as an effective lesson for elementary students, on the same topic. This is because elementary students have not yet developed the cognitive skills have not yet developed to the point where they can understand more complex ideas. As a teacher, it will be my job to work to determine what methods are best to use for each lesson with students of different age groups. By doing so I will help to ensure that as many students as possible are learning effectively. What is learning? Learning by definition is the acquisition o...