A front view of the high school. Photo Creds: Chris Knight,The Patriot-News |
As my cohort reflects on our experiences at
Central Mountain, here are some of the things that we did well and others that we need to improve on.
Meagan Slates was happy with her student teaching
experience! To challenge herself, she taught a welding class where students completed a hook project. Meagan started in the classroom the first day to
really go over what they were doing and why its important. On the second day,
she broke the class into three groups so they would be able to travel around
the shop, complete their project in smaller groups and be safer. Meagan
demonstrated at each station and asked many questions to make sure that the students really knew what was going on. She could tell they were getting a little
annoyed with all the questions, but she wanted to make sure everyone stayed
safe. On the the third day, the students
actually got to work at the stations and everything went well. Overall, Meagan
was really happy with how her micro teaching experience took place and is excited for her future plans of student teaching. You can read her blog here.
Allison Hoover facilitating an activity outside |
Allison Hoover ended her blog with some “concepts for success” such as: to set the stage by creating a felt need for the content, don’t second guess yourself, keep directions clear and concise, and to ask high order questions to get them thinking. She also said "teach for many years.. then maybe you’ll get it down".
I completed student teaching on Wildland Forest
Firefighting. I had a class of nine senior boys and really enjoyed working with them. However, I did not keep them engaged enough. It was a very interesting
experience as each day the class responded differently. On the first day they talked too much, while on the second day, a student fell
asleep. On the last day, I had a really awesome bellwork and interest approach
but lost their attention as the class went on. I learned many lessons for my future student teaching experience like carrying out lesson
plans and teaching from PowerPoints, but especially preparation. Preparation is
everything and can really help you out. I was really prepared with the stuff
that I had since I brought some equipment that the firefighters really use, but
I did not have enough engaging activities and I kept losing my students.
However, this is a learning experience and it served its purpose as I learned a
lot and I will improve in the future.
My student teaching cohort all had good experiences and learned a lot during our time there. We were able to
learn from this experience and change things for our LifeKnowledge lesson at
our cooperating school that we are student teaching at. Teaching is one of
those things that just takes a while to become good at. It takes a while to come to a point that you feel
comfortable and this is something that people really need to keep in mind. You
cannot enter the field thinking you will be perfect right away. You need to
give yourself room to grow.
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!
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