Teaching and Learning - But Do It Effectively

Grab your reading glasses and get ready for a steady stream of blog posts as #psuaged22 dives into their second week of the Fall Semester! This week we will be digging into the concepts of effective teaching and learning as future agricultural educators. To start off this conversation, we have been given five reading assignments. 

In the first chapter of Methods of Teaching Agriculture, it is made clear that teaching does not take place in a vacuum. From student interest to the knowledge and skill of the educator, these readings have opened my eyes to just how complex of a profession that I am embarking on. Furthermore, it has helped me to identify areas in which I can facilitate more effective teaching and learning. Ever the planner, one of the big takeaways that I have gleaned from our readings came from John Hayward's What's the Plan? where he highlights the four essential elements of successful lesson planning as numbered below.

1. Compassionate Understanding
2. Clear Purpose and Expectations
3. Creative Use of Resources
4. Competent Follow-Through

On the Four Essential Elements

Dr. Foster & #psuaged22 

John Hayward makes the point that observing the different needs of your students is essential to effective teaching and learning. Compassionate Understanding explains that the most effective way to reach students is to familiarize yourself with who they are as learners. Something that I noticed the first week of class that one of my professors, Dr. Foster, does really well is taking the time to great each of us enthusiastically and catching up with us before the start of class. In doing so, he utilizes Compassionate Understanding by taking the time to get to know us to show us that he cares which catches our attention and makes us more interested in what we will be learning during that class. I thought this was an especially helpful nugget of wisdom because I want to be not only an educator who cares, but an educators who knows how to show she cares.

Reflecting back to my last blog post, "Say No To Nerves", something that I did not do very well was communicate a Clear Purpose and Expectations. Transparency in this area is extremely important. If a teacher cannot articulate an answer to the question, "Why are we doing this?", student engagement and learner satisfaction quickly plummets. As I look to my lesson planning packed semester, this reading has highlighted the importance of sharing objectives with my students so that my teaching is focused and they have a clear picture of what they are being asked to absorb that day. On the other hand, something that I feel I did well during my first teaching challenge of the semester was my Creative Use of Resources. It adds to my nerves when I feel that my students are not enjoying how they are learning, so finding engaging activities to add to my lesson plans is really important to me. John Hayward emphasizes that student choice in learning not only gives students an opportunity to find their voice, but deters them from derailing a lesson they had a voice in planning. 

Competent Follow-Through emphasizes a trait that I feel I REALLY lack as a budding educator: confidence. Back to how teaching does not happen in a vacuum, if an educator is unable to read the emotional state of the room and adapt their lesson to be more engaging for a restless group, their lesson plans become less effective. This element has helped me to see that asking students what their teacher could have done differently during a lesson and then having the confidence to adapt future lesson plans can be the difference between effective and ineffective learning.

Reflective Asks

As a part of our week two assignment, we were asked to develop a few questions to ask three different groups of people. Please feel free to add your thoughts in the comment section to any of the following questions!

For my future students... "What are your strengths as a learner and what are some ways I can adapt our lessons so that you can utilize those strengths in my classroom?"

For my Cooperating Teacher... "How do you go about Compassionate Understanding to teach more effectively? Is there a way to play to the majority of a classes strengths even though each student is a unique learner?"

For my cohort members... "What are some resources we can use to get creative when lesson planning? Is it possible to be an inexperienced and effective educator at the same time?"

"Taylor"ed with love,