Questions For Group Learning and Teacher Talk

1) For your future students and/or future school administrators

How can I speak to you in a way that will enhance your performance?

I'd like to ask this to my students because I think it would be a great way to get the dialogue started regarding work and business like behavior in my class. This question would also give the students an opportunity to feel like their voice is heard as a group. Lastly, I think the resulting conversation would be a wonderful time to extend my classroom expectations and elaborate that respect is a two way street.

2) For your cooperating teacher and/or university supervisor

How do you keep a group of students engaged in a lecture heavy class session?

This is a question I'd be asking my cooperating teacher and would likely find the answer as I watch them teach throughout the semester. My current answer would be to supplement the content with constant checks for understandings and potentially even mini activities along the way. I guess that begs the question, is it still a lecture if you have activities planned along the way? So that's two questions in that area.

3) For one of your current virtual mentors (be specific!) and/or your cohort

Can you make a lecture interesting?

To my fearless cohort, this question is for you. I ask this mostly as a prompt for discussing best management practices and past experiences. It may take practice but we need to ensure that we use our talents and gifts in a way that makes lecture somewhat interesting. Brody could supplement his content with a few devious licks on Tik-Tok and I can digress for progress at least 3 times in a 45 minute lesson. So the question becomes how will you make your lectures interesting?

My Interesting Experience With Interest Approaches

o What happened?

Here's the scoop. This was the first lesson for a shop safety unit which included students being able to safely and effectively identify and use tools commonly used for home maintenance tasks. 

To get the students interested in something like tools, I figured it would have to be an interest approach that got students, you know, interested in the topic. To do this I laid tools out on a table and provided the following instructions:

o How does it relate to what I know about teaching and learning?

This was related to what I know about teaching and learning because I know that learners are interested by things that allow them to be creative. This activity allowed my students to be as creative as they wanted to be while also finding some humor in what we did which is also a principle of interest. Furthermore, finding a spirit tool is sort of fun and novel idea which even the name likely promotes interest for learning.

o What did I learn from the experience?

I learned that being creative is fun! It was fun to see what my peers created when given this prompt and I can only imagine what some of my future students will say. On a less positive note, I learned that it is incredibly important for a teacher to filter music before playing it in the classroom. When I reviewed my lab experience I noticed that the song I played for my students was incredibly inappropriate for the classroom.

o How can I apply this as an Agriscience teacher?

This activity and the lessons learned from it will be incredibly helpful when I am an ag teacher because I want to facilitate class content that students are able to engage in with genuine interest. Also I am going to hopefully have fun with my students by playing music... but it must be appropriate!

Learning By Doing: Tales of "My First Day in Class"

o What happened?

So this is a pretty neat story. 
The job description included creating a lesson plan for the first day of school, and then executing one of the elements from your plan. So for example, I carried out the first day of school classroom expectations. 
To do this, I asked my peers (students) to walk around the room to the whiteboards which had one word- each of which built in to what my classroom expectations are. To illustrate the scene, there was one board with the word kindness, respect, and then growth. My classroom expectations, which would differ from my classroom rules, are to show kindness, respect, and growth. 
I was impressed with how my peers responded to the prompt and were able to write down examples on each of the whiteboards with their input on how to show kindness, growth, and respect in the classroom.
o How does it relate to what I know about teaching and learning?
This activity is essential for the first day of class with your students. Regardless of how we deliver them, classroom expectations must be provided on the first day of school. It's sort of like the relationship between employer and employee. I'd imagine that if the boss failed to provide expectations from the start and perhaps was even a bit too laissez-faire, then it will be hard to change the habits of the employee. It's the same in the classroom when we consider the dynamic of a student-teacher relationship. 

o What did I learn from the experience?

I learned first and foremost that the activity may actually work! I hope that doesn't sound too prideful but in these days as a pre-service educator, any victory regardless of how big or small is worth celebrating. I also learned more about my personal teaching style. 
During this activity I showed my enthusiasm with humor as opposed to high energy. When comparing my work to my peers', I noticed that we all show enthusiasm differently which is important to understand. Because if enthusiasm was only shown by high energy individuals (some of best teachers were like this), then a calm punk like me wouldn't be able to teach. In the end, the lesson is that energy doesn't always equal enthusiasm.

o How can I apply this as an Agriscience teacher? 

When the rubber hits the road, I'll have to execute an activity very similar to this when I got to set my classroom expectations. Judging by the outcomes of the experience, perhaps this may even be the activity I use in the future!

The Things We Learn from Group Teaching

 Some Ways We Learn Together

3 Connections to Student Teaching

• Lecture as a Form of Group Learning

In this week's reading, we discover how lecture can be outlined in various ways depending upon what desired outcome you want the lesson to produce. More importantly however, the reading notes how it is imperative to create a lecture summary and speaker notes for you while you plan. I wonder why this isn't a practice we use in class while planning to write lessons.

• Use Brainstorming!

I firmly believe brainstorming is an excellent tool for group learning. I justify this with a scenario. Imagine I'm facilitating a workshop where I am trying to convince the audience that student employees are a vital demographic to recruit. I could speak until my face was blue with all the words but when I ask them to come up with the answer on their own, they take ownership. At the end of the end of the day, people are more willing to learn from themselves than they are from others. Or at least, that makes sense to me.

• Asking the right questions!

Our questions for students will make or break for actual learning. The reading made note of some of the better and less quality questions for students. One point the reading made was that teachers are not supposed to reject the first wrong answer. The point was made because teachers are to dig deeper into exploring as a class to take the wrong answer and utilize the class knowledge to arrive at the appropriate answer.

2 Connections to My #AEE Coursework

• AEE413 - Program Management

Our reading boasted this title: "Effective Teaching: The Dequalliberate Act of Planning, Organizing, and Managing a Comprehensive Agriculture Program". In AEE 413 we are exploring the planning and operational knowledge that goes into a well run agriculture program. This point makes it clear that being an excellent teacher goes beyond the typical teaching class interface time. But rather, there is a positive correlation between the work that goes on behind the scenes and the success of our agricultural education programs.

• AEE 295 - Keep your eyes on the Ag Ed prize!

Our reading also made it clear that supervised agricultural experience and FFA are not the brightest stars in the sky. The instruction we've received thus far has almost created an idea that all 3 are working equally. However this reading is adamant in saying the instruction of any sort is your number one job followed by SAE and FFA.  I think this makes sense because in the end, my administration aint gonna pay me to watch students do.

Empathetic Educators Make for Empowered Learners

 Questions to Consider When Examining How Empathy Works for Learners

A Question for My Future Students: Is your voice being heard?

Despite being the facilitator of my classroom environment, I do believe that a student should be allowed to express themselves within the four walls of an educational facility. This looks like not being afraid to speak with adults about hard topics and the freedom to share their opinion in class. Perhaps leaving this question vague and generic would be the best way to hear what students actually believe. As educators, the response could be startling as we must be prepared to receive negative feedback from our learners in order to better serve them in the future.

A Question for My Cooperating Teacher: How do you incorporate learner input into instruction?

Obviously a monkey can't run a zoo they live in, but learners aren't always monkeys, which means they may have a role in running the classroom. This could be a matter of personal opinion but it would seem appropriate to engage students in a way that gives them autonomy in their learning. Autonomy being one the three items identifying by McClelland's Human Motivation theory. Considering this, it would be helpful to know how learner autonomy is provided in my cooperating teachers classroom and if student input is considered when creating that autonomy.

A Question for My Cohort: How has being a part of #psuaged22 prepared you to be an empathetic educator? 

Alright, so we have some pretty Rockstar teacher educators @TeachAgPSU. That's a no brainer. I'd like to know how the entirety of our university experience has made us better educators and specifically how the coursework and those administrating that coursework have made us out to be more empathetic educators.   

Boy, What You Know About Learning?

 3 -2- 1 Of What I'm Learning About Teaching

3 Connections to My Prospective Student Teaching Experience

Interest Approaches 

In my reading this past week, a chapter focused on planning for instruction provided some interesting information about interest approaches (see what I did there). My experience with the subject goes back to the glory days of being a Pennsylvania State Officer when I was facilitating workshops for youth in agricultural education. My teammates and I were trained to utilize interest approaches in a way that just got the gears greased for the information we were about to share. However the reading includes the importance of providing closure for an interest approach which was sort of new information for me. This meaning that a well written interest approach will include a reflection type component once the activity is complete.

Analyzing Desired Results and Transfer of Learning 

Another tidbit I found important was utilizing a backward design when planning for units and lessons for a stronger outcome of learning. This essentially means to start with the end goal in mind and then build your plans around it. Furthermore, I am particularly intrigued with the concept of identifying how the information you teach is transferable to real life application. An example provided in the text regarding mathematics elaborated that a transfer of learning was to "apply mathematical knowledge, skill, and reasoning to solve real-world problems." I want to keep this in mind as I go to student teaching. 

Essential Questions Are to Be Asked and Learned Over Time

Keeping this point short and sweet, the concept is simple. The essential questions around the content being taught should be re-visited over the course of a unit. Simply put, allow your students to practice retrieval by refreshing them on objectives from lessons past.

2 Connections to Other AEE Coursework 

Different Domains of Learning

In AEE 311, with Rockstar teacher educator, Dr. Kevin Curry, we learned that students require different modes of learning. This includes utilizing psychomotor learning where the learner can utilize sensory and moving components to apply the class content in a real world way.

Writing Strong Objectives

In AEE 295, AEE 412, and a bit in 413 we cover the importance of writing strong objectives. As the reading and my instructors would suggest, this is important for multiple reasons but primarily because the action verb should connect with the assessment rendered to evaluate understanding.

1 Thing to Consider - Triangulation in Learning

This is an interesting concept and I'm not 100% learned in what it entails. But to my understanding, the triangulation approach comes at learning by identifying an objective, a desired outcome of that objective and a resource to supplement the facilitation of the objective and outcomes. To connect this to relevant information I already know, it is similar to claim, data, warrant when making an argument in an essay. The objective being the claim, a resource being the data, and the outcome being our warrant. This analogy may not be correct, but after-all, I'm still learning. 

Fritz, J., & Carpenter, R. (2019, April 16). Triangulating student engagement with "built & Bought" learning analytics. Brill. https://brill.com/view/book/edcoll/9789004399273/BP000019.xml.