Congratulations to Dr. Laura Rice: Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching

The Paul R. and Joan M. Shellenberger Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching is a huge honor for any teacher here on the Penn State Campus. This award recognizes full time instructors who exhibit excellence in undergraduate teaching and contribute significantly to the education of undergraduate students. We are fortunate enough to have the recipient of this award, Dr. Laura Rice, be in the Agriculture Education and Extension Department who not only teaches undergraduate freshman in the Ag Education 100 level class, but a professor who works one on one with student teacher candidates their senior year and sends them off to go teach!

 To be considered for this award, Dr. Rice was nominated by the staff that is in the Agriculture Extension and Education department. Her nomination packet had to include a letter stating why she should receive the award, a reflective statement about her teaching philosophy, proof and measures of her teaching effectiveness, a list of service to the students and the teaching profession, and ways that she has developed her professional development over the time at Penn State. You could not have picked a better award that would recognize all of Dr. Rice’s accomplishments she has made here!

Dr. Rice states, “I like being a part of our student’s agriculture education journey and igniting their passion for why they want to teach agriculture. It is an awesome feeling seeing the end result, watching our student teachers grow, and seeing the light bulb moment go off.”

Dr. Rice, congratulations on your award and all of your accomplishments! We can’t wait to see what other impacts you make at Penn State and the agriculture community!

To learn more about starting on the path to having a career that makes a positive impact on the lives of students across the globe by becoming an agricultural educator, please contact the agricultural teacher education program at teachag@psu.edu. Follow us on Twitter at TeachAgPSU, on Facebook, or on our blog.

PSU Teach Ag! Team: Laura Sankey Rice

Mrs. Laura Sankey Rice

"A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops." This quote by Henry Brooks Adams is a favorite of Laura Sankey Rice and it really does apply to her future goals. Rice (@LauraSankeyRice) is one of the newest faculty members here at Penn State in the Agriculture Education department and she hopes to continue to help develop the teacher preparation program to be one of the best in the nation.

She got her undergraduate degree from Penn State in 2007 then also got her Masters at Penn State in 2011. She is currently working on her PhD here at PSU so it is safe to say she has blue and white in her blood. When asked about her decision to work at Penn State Laura said, “I have a great respect for the teacher preparation program and the faculty within the program and was honored to have the opportunity to work with such great role models and help make a positive difference in the lives of students wanting to become well rounded, innovative agriculture educators.”

Before coming to PSU, Laura taught at Keystone Central Mountain and Clearfield Area High school. She also was a summer intern with Clearfield County Cooperative Extension. While teaching, Laura received a PAAE nomination for the “Teachers Turn the Key Award” in 2010 and also received a local grant to endorse and promote composting among the teachers at the school.

While she has many goals and hopes for the Agriculture Education program here at Penn State, the most important things in her life right now are her husband and their baby that’s on the way! Stop in the Ferguson building to say hello to Mrs. Sankey Rice and welcome here to the Ag Ed Family!

To learn more about starting on the path to having a career that makes a positive impact on the lives of students across the globe by becoming an agricultural educator, please contact the agricultural teacher education program at teachag@psu.edu. Follow us on Twitter at TeachAgPSU, on Facebook, or on our blog!

Laura Metrick 

2015 Student Teacher 

Twitter: @Its_LauraBeth

2014 Teach Ag Avenger

Gaining Global Competency and Applied Research Skills: Bryanna Kenno's European Adventure

Study abroad group in the English Gardens in Munich, Germany

Bryanna Kenno, a junior at Penn State, was chosen to help Laura Rice (@laurasankeyrice) this summer with her Ph.D dissertation work in Sweden. She was recommended for the position by Dr. Foster, her adviser. Bryanna was eligible for the position because she is majoring in Agricultural Extension and Education with a minor in International Agriculture, as well her good grades and involvement in extracurricular activities. Bryanna fit the bill perfectly and was ready to travel to Europe.

To get to Europe, Bryanna traveled with a group of eight students and two adults from Penn State Altoona as they made their way to Germany for a short term study abroad experience. Bryanna arrived in Germany in early May to complete the short course study abroad, and then left the group to travel to Sweden by herself. Bryanna stayed in Sweden for about three weeks and said that that travel experience was definitely different, as she had to deal with delay or gate changes which can be scary in a foreign airport alone.

Group representing Penn State at the Ritter Sport factory in Waldenbuch, Germany

When she was in Germany with the Altoona group, the study abroad class focused on agricultural production systems. The class got to tour three dairy farms, the Ritter-Sport chocolate factory, a brewery, a winery and vineyard, a German McDonald’s, and the Viktualien Market in Munich. Sweden didn't have as many sightseeing opportunities but Bryanna spent a few days exploring the city of Uppsala then joined Laura to tour the Viking Burial Grounds. She and Laura also went to the coast of the Baltic Sea with a couple that Laura had met at the University.

Besides traveling across Europe, Bryanna also did some work while she was there. Bryanna helped Laura research effective instruction in post-secondary agriculture courses, specifically working to develop operational definitions of teaching practices of award winning agricultural educators at Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet, the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (http://www.slu.se/en/) She accompanied Laura to interviews with faculty, entered data into spreadsheets and completed a review of literature. Bryanna was able to work with faculty members and students of the college.

Viking Burial Grounds in Gamla Uppsala, Sweden. Grounds date back to the 1500's and Vikings were usually cremated and buried in a tomb underneath the mounds. 

With a more globalized view on agriculture, Bryanna said that the traveling she did and her research experience has impacted her as a future educator in numerous ways. She had the opportunity to experience agricultural systems in Germany and interact and discuss agriculture with students her age from both countries --- students from Hohenheim University in Germany and students from SLU in Sweden. When she got home she felt a sense of reassurance and knew that entering the field of agricultural education was the right decision. In both Germany and Sweden their secondary schools don’t have agricultural education classes and the students that Bryanna met were amazed that so many American high schools offer agricultural programs. This made her appreciate agricultural programs and FFA in a whole new way. “I also knew that I made a great decision by conducting undergraduate research involving agricultural education because the field means so much to me. I want to leave a lasting impact on my future students and all of my experiences in Europe will allow me to do this.”

Bryanna starts undergraduate research in the fall that will partially stem off of Laura’s work from this summer. She will be researching how student’s evaluations of classes in the College of Agricultural Sciences affect the way professors teach the classes in the future.

To learn more about starting on the path to having a career that makes a positive impact on the lives of students across the globe by becoming an agricultural educator, please contact the agricultural teacher education program at teachag@psu.edu. Follow us on Twitter at TeachAgPSU, on Facebook, or on our blog!

Jeanne Case

Student Blogger

2014 Dover HS Student Teacher

Twitter: JRose_Case

PAAE Summer Conference - Student Teacher Style

[Editor's Note: Every year, we conduct an orientation for cooperating teachers, university supervisors, and teacher candidates to ensure that everyone is on the same page for the upcoming year/internship. We purposefully conduct this at the summer conference of the agricultural teachers association to introduce students to the professional organization. Below is the perspective of one 2014 teacher candidate, Ms. Jeanne Case, who will be student teacher at Dover High School. Follow the adventures of this student teaching group on Twitter at #psuaged14]

A couple weeks ago I attended the Pennsylvania Association of Agricultural Educators (PAAE) conference in Manheim, PA. Since I am interning with the PA Farm Bureau this summer and am living in Harrisburg I was a simple 45 minutes away from the conference – or so I thought. As per typical Jeanne, I got lost and was late despite giving myself an extra 15 minutes when I left home. Thankfully one of my peers, in my student teaching cohort, Mr. Billy Saylor, called me and gave me directions and I did not miss that much of the conference.

My peers and I started the conference meeting with our student teacher mentors and talked about what the perfect student teaching experience would look like. Ideas were thrown around, such as our individual experiences with different aspects of FFA – ACES, SLLC, chapter meetings, CDE’s, etc. We also thought it would be good to go to department meetings, meet with the principal and other teachers in the building, as well as attend a school board meeting. Respect of the students, teachers, and each other was also an important subject. Some people seem to think that the student teachers have to be in competition with each other since we are graduating at the same time and looking for jobs. This year we are striving to work together, to really help each other out, to work as a family and a team. We should be building each other up rather than breaking the group down.  Drama is not an option in our cohort.

After we met with the teachers and Dr. Foster and Dr. Ewing, we split off for some focused instruction for teacher candidates with leaders of the program and recent graduates like Ms. Laura Rice, Ms. Mackenzie McCollum and Mr. Doug Masser. They tried to calm our fears of the upcoming semesters. They also stressed how it is important to dress tastefully because we may have the opportunity to meet important people and it is important to present yourself well because everything is an interview. We went over appropriate clothing for different events.  Dr. Foster is not the best at expressing what girls should be wearing –" uh, nice pants and a shirt" - is not a detailed enough answer for a girl.  Ms. Rice and Mackenzie were really helpful. The individuals running this session also stressed that if we keep up with our work, rather than waiting until the end of the semester, that student teaching really is manageable and will not “kill us”.

Student teacher, Billy Saylor, with the winery grapes

We also received our own teacher " big idea"  books to keep track of any ideas that we may want to use later or things that we will want to look up to implement in the classroom.

Following lunch we split into different groups and went to a session that was hosted by teachers from across the state. I went to an electrical lesson where three different teachers shared how they teach electrical wiring in their class. All of them did it completely different but it still got the same point across.Students learn things differently and it was nice to see different ways to teach the same subject. It will be important to keep that in mind during our teaching career as some techniques may work with some students and not with others – it is good to keep an open mind and be willing to change your teaching style to help a student learn.  Insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

As PAAE is an agricultural conference we. of course, have to support ALL aspects of the agricultural industry so we went on an industry tour of a local winery. We toured the farm then got to learn how they process the grapes on the farm and make their product. We even got to sample that product with a little swirl, smell and sip. To bring out the different flavors there were local cheeses and crackers provided as different foods change the taste palate of your mouth and create a different experience.

Student teachers listening to a presentation about the wine industry in PA

To end the evening we had dinner at a local auction barn and played Minute to Win it. Teams were made up of teachers and student teachers alike as we battled to win. It was a good bonding experience for all involved, the participants and spectators alike. Lots of the games were quite silly and it got everyone out of their shells, mingling and forming connections, which is what conferences and networking events are all about. Here are a few example videos of competition in action!!

Dr. John Ewing in the infamous "Pencil Snatch". Mad Skills

Mr. Herb Hoffeditz puts his nose in it!

Our Teacher Educators Team Up. Dr. John Ewing & Dr. Daniel Foster

2014 Student Teachers Billy Saylor and Caleb Wright Exhibit Team Work!

The second day of the conference and the last day for the student teachers had us attending more workshops to learn of opportunities that we can provide to our future students such as certifications, dual enrollment and tests to prove that our students are learning adequately, to name a few.

We were also able to listen to issues happening in the state, such as state days and other events. There was time to network with different teachers from across the state and make connections and friendships. I even met a woman whom I had talked to previously via email and facebook that is an alumni of the Greek organization I am involved with. It turns out that she was in the house the same time as my mom and that she and my mom actually worked together in the pasture research lab sorting different types of weeds. My mom even went to her wedding and took wedding photos for her. I love to network and make connections and I also love to meet alumni as they just seem to pop up out of nowhere and provide excellent resources. I also met another man who is actually the father of my student teacher mentor; I had talked to him on the phone last fall to interview him for a project in one of my AEE classes. It was very nice to be able to put faces to names.

We, the student teachers, ended our portion of the conference with a meeting to discuss why it was important that we were there and the importance of professional organizations. Agriculture is such a small industry while being so large.  It is important to help each other out and share ideas, as it helps the industry to constantly grow in the forward direction.  On behalf of this spring’s student teachers I know that we were very appreciative of the opportunity to attend the conference, to make friends and to learn a lot about the profession that we are about to enter. It was a great jump start to the fall semester!

To learn more about starting on the path to having a career that makes a positive impact on the lives of students across the globe by becoming an agricultural educator, please contact the agricultural teacher education program at teachag@psu.edu. Follow us on Twitter at TeachAgPSU, on Facebook, or on our blog! 

Jeanne Case

Student Blogger

2014 Dover HS Student Teacher

Twitter: JRose_Case