Welcome Mr. Seaman and Ms. Mathie to PSU TeachAg! @JonSeamanAgEd @BethMathiePsu

Penn State Center for Professional Personnel Development has two new members that have been hired to assist in providing an effective impact on training new and beginning teachers as well as current educators. We welcome Jonathan Seaman and Bethany Mathie our new Co-Curricular Program Managers. Lets meet our new managers!

Jonathan is originally from Kutztown, PA, past volunteer firefighter, and a former graduate of Agriculture and Extension Education at Penn State. Jon was led to this position because of his natural passion for agriculture education and felt his skill set suited this position well. His past experiences from his childhood, working on dairy farms, training to be a firefighter, and FFA leadership and opportunities are what define his character in present times. Jon's goals in this position is to introduce nanotechnology, 3-D printing, and the use of certification programs in Pennsylvania agricultural education programs, to be a resource for pre-service and in-service educators, and to implement the use project and inquiry based learning through agricultural educators. Outside of work Jon enjoys spending time with his family and dog Axle, as well as watching Penn State Football.

Beth is originally from Montoursville, PA and a former graduate of Agriculture and Extension Education at Penn State. Beth was led to this position as she was looking to come back to Pennsylvania from the Baltimore area where she taught agricultural education. She felt that this position was the right fit for her, and wanted a change of life. Her past experiences from her supportive parents encouraging her along and teaching in various schools including urban education has defined who she is a person in present times. Her goals in this position are to do the best she can to support programs and teachers (new and beginning) to increase the teacher retention rate. Outside of Penn State Beth enjoys reading, yoga, and chasing her three year old.

WE ARE, excited to welcome you to Penn State, and we wish both of you the best in accomplishing your goals in the position you hold! 

Luke Kerstetter

Communications Team Member

Twitter Handle: @lmkerstetter96

2020 Agricultural Education Student Teacher

Newest Addition to the Ag Ed family: Feature on Jon Seaman

Students working on the Rain Garden
Project!

With the recent amount of people interested on teaching agriculture, events to go to, and meetings with potential students, it is hard trying to find time to organize everything. Jon Seaman (@JonSeamanAgEd), a Penn State graduate from 2007, has been hired to facilitate and run a lot of the programs that the Agricultural Extension and Education major has to offer, which includes, watching over the recent cohort of student teachers, looking over the Teach Ag! Avenger team, and much more!

Some students actually were allowed to run the machinery
for the garden project!

Mr. Seaman was a teacher before he came to PSU which allows us to get his personal insight on what we could do better  as teachers. He taught for 5 years at the Chambersburg Area Senior High School as an agriculture teacher and then at the Chambersburg Area Career Magnet School as applied STEM. During his times at both of those schools, he had his students rolling out several hands on assignments that gave them experiential learning! During his time there, he applied for several grants to help his school programs. He received a $5,000 grant from PA DEP to help support his schools community rain garden. He also received a $10,000 grant from the PA DEP again and used that money to install a 3,000 sq. ft. living roof on a portion of the high school. That project required to have the kids take over 21 tons of engineered soil up three stories one wheelbarrow at a time. All of the hard work and determination that the students had made the project amazing.

Students still working on the project!

By coming to Penn State, Jon is bringing all of his big dreams and plans to the college. In some short goals that he listed, he wants to establish a cross- curricular network of partners within the university as well as continuing to meet new students and build relationships with them. Looking into the future even more, he wants to get agricultural educators excited and trained to incorporate STEM, nanotechnology, and robotics, into their curriculum to keep agricultural education competitive with other curricular content areas.

With some many awesome goals and plans for the future, we are so happy to have Mr. Seaman at State College! If you ever want to stop by and say hello to Mr. Seaman (which he highly encourages!) his office is in 206 Ferguson!

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!

Olivia Murphy-Sweet
Student Blogger
Teach Ag! Avenger
Twitter Handle @OSweetMurph
2016 Agricultural Education Student Teacher