Thriving (Not Just Surviving)

SLLC Professional Photographer Badge = Earned

Eventually you need to take off the training wheels in order to learn how to ride a bike and the same goes for teaching. A lot has happened in the past few weeks from SLLC to teaching without my Cooperating Teacher for the first time. The days have been passing quickly through the last half of this internship and I finally feel like I am thriving as a budding educator. Let's catch you up on what has happened since Week Eight!

State Legislative Leadership Conference

On March 13th, 14th, and 15th, Ms. Jeanne Case and I took a group of five Cumberland Valley FFA members to Harrisburg for the State Legislative Leadership Conference (SLLC). Here, our members interacted with other members from across the state of Pennsylvania learning about advocacy and the legislative process. After learning about advocacy for the agricultural industry and parliamentary procedure at the conference, we had breakfast with a room full of Pennsylvania Senators and Representatives on Tuesday morning. Here, my students were able to flex the skills that they just learned and have intentional conversations at this legislative breakfast. To round out this conference, we took the students on a tour of the capital so they could learn more about where the legislative process happens in our state. SLLC was always my favorite conference to attend as an FFA member because it pushed me to learn different skills as a leader. As an advisor, I appreciated traveling with a small group of students who were passionate about taking advantage of different learning opportunities. Ms. Jeanne Case also helped me think about planning logistics for our group when it came to organizing meals and the visit to the capital. 

CV Students In The PA Capitol

Mid-Internship Seminar

Right as we returned from SLLC I hopped in my car and traveled to State College to participate in the Mid-Internship Seminar for #psuaged22. Here we reflected on ways we can continue to connect with students over the last half of our internship, improve our lesson plans, and refine our teaching techniques. Much of this experience gave us the opportunity to engage in a service learning project with Children's Express. Service learning is not just an opportunity to do community service, but to improve the lives of others with specific objectives for our own growth. As a cohort, we created a plan to build a garden for the students at Children's Express so that they are able to learn more about environmental science and where their food comes from. Engaging in the project not only gave us the chance to better understand service learning, but pushed us to think about how we would coordinate service learning projects for our students in the future. To round off this experience, we learned about the importance of self care and mindfulness as an educator. It's certainly hard to fill the cup of our students if we do not have anything in our own cup to poor into theirs.

Classroom Updates

Compression & Displacement Lab

Over the past few weeks I have really felt myself growing as an educator. A few weeks ago I noticed a shift in my students' behavior where it was harder to gain and keep their attention, so I have been trying new techniques to institute hands-on learning in my classroom and continuously build rapport with my students. 

In Ag Power & Technology we have been learning about compression and displacement calculations. To take these calculations beyond the worksheet, we moved into the shop, disassembled our engines, and took measurements from our engines to plug into the formulas we have been using. This gave my students the opportunity to apply the theory they were learning to a real life application in the shop.

My Plant Science class has been learning about aquaponics the past few weeks. This class has been significantly more quiet and harder to engage than any of my others, which challenged me to get creative in my teaching techniques. A fun way that I came up with to help them learn about the different types of aquaponics systems was our Edible Aquaponics Art Gallery project. During this project, each student was given the chance to research one of the five types of aquaponics systems and create an art gallery description card detailing the advantages, disadvantages, and unique features of their system. After their research was complete, they came up with a blueprint on how to create this system out of snack foods and got to building their edible aquaponics systems. Once building had been completed, we voted on a "best in show" model from each type. This activity really engaged my students in their learning, motivated them to research their system, and helped me to build up my rapport with this class. This project broke down an invisible barrier that had been keeping participation down in this class and now they are one of my favorite groups to engage with. 

Edible Aquaponics Art Projects

As I alluded to at the beginning of this blog post, at the end of this week I took the training wheels off as Ms. Darla Romberger embarked on a Professional Development opportunity in Nashville and left me to learn how to teach without her in the room. While I was nervous at first to be on my own, this really boosted my confidence as a teacher. Not only did I feel confident taking charge of the classroom, but I juggled a dissection in Animal Science, coordinating getting my students to a guest speaker, and handling a plant delivery over my two days alone with my students. Two days does not seem like a long time in the world of education, and there was always a substitute teacher present in case I needed backup, but I feel like I grew tremendously in my confidence to teach on my own after graduation.

Overall, I am thoroughly enjoying my time at Cumberland Valley and finally feel like I am thriving as an educator. I cannot wait to see where the next few weeks takes me as a Student Teacher and hope that you tune in to my future blogs for more updates!

"Taylor"ed with love,