My Ag Ed Journey

During my Surprise Lab, I acted as the substitute teacher for a lesson prepared by one of my classmates, Amanda Gagne. Amanda’s lesson was on Wildfires and it seemed very interesting to me. Before this lesson, I had looked through her lesson plan to see what the lesson was about and what was to be said during the lesson. When presenting the lesson, I did not follow her lesson plan exactly so I got a little lost in my delivery but it seemed to work well. I think that this relates well to what I know about teaching because teaching doesn’t always go the way you think it would. This is especially true if you aren’t prepared for or don’t know the lesson material. The more prepared you are for a lesson or the more you know about the subject the better you will be able to move through the lesson. One thing that I learned from this experience is to look over the materials left by the teacher of the class that I am substituting for. I did not look through my classmate...

Differentiated instruction is very important to courses in order to maximize student success. All students learn in different ways, while anyone can learn through different methods, we all have a preferred method or one that simply works best for us. By using different teaching methods, you will benefit students by catering to their different learning styles. While all students benefit from differentiated learning it is necessary for some students. Some students will need differentiated instruction to succeed in class. By adapting the lessons to individual student needs you can help them to succeed in additional methods to improve the learning environment for all students. During my student teaching internship, I plan to implement differentiated learning to improve my students’ education. I know that there will be students in need of differentiated education styles and because of this, I will find ways to adapt my lessons for them. One way that I might use differentiated lea...

Problem Solving Assessment During this lesson, I gave my students an assessment of assessing water quality with chemical tests and macroinvertebrates. I brought in water test strips, sample water from my aquarium and images of macroinvertebrates.   My plan for future use of this lesson is to use the liquid chemical tests instead of the test strips, I would also have actual macroinvertebrates for my students to look at. I think this lesson relates well to what I know about teaching and learning. Prior to this lesson, my students will have learned what they needed to in order to perform this assessment. Such as how to conduct a chemical test, how to identify macroinvertebrates and how to collect them. My students will use these skills to solve a problem related to their lesson, in order to show the skills that they gained. One thing that I learned from this is that during activities I may have to step back a little bit. However, I will also n...

Assessing Students Assessments are one of the most important parts of education as they are used to gauge what students have learned, what they already know/think they know or what skills they have developed. Different types of assessments have different purposes in regard to student evaluation. The two main types of assessments are formative assessments and summative assessments. Formative assessments take place before the learning process. During these assessments, teachers are trying to determine how much background knowledge their students have on the topic being taught. By using formative assessments teachers are able to change their lessons to start on an easier or more advanced topic regarding the main lesson. Summative assessments, on the other hand, takes place at the end of instruction. The goal of this assessment is to see either how students improved over the course of a given unit and/or how much they have learned from it. Summative assessments tend to be more h...

Problem Solving and Student Projects Problem-solving by definition is finding solutions to difficult or complex issues. Problem-solving goes hand in hand with project-based learning, as students will be given a problem that they must find the solution to. These problems can vary in difficulty but are generally kept to a level at which the students can solve. The projects that students complete can also vary based upon what material the class is currently learning about. By breaking up class material by levels of importance and difficulty in order to build up the problem-solving skills of students. By having my students complete small projects throughout the year on topics related to/using course material students will be able to explore areas of interest while learning the important class material. I hope to use brief projects in my classes to allow my students to learn for themselves as much as possible. I would use these projects to create a larger end of the quarter project...