Unit Plan Knock-Out: Round One

Knock-out!

I sit here in disbelief that I have completed my first unit plan.

I would love to say that this was a simple task; however, I can admit that I struggled to knock it out.

Below I have highlighted my efforts and struggles I went through to knock-out my fist unit plan!

Round One: Be Purposeful

I want to be purposeful in the way that I fulfilled expectations beyond the essential elements of a unit plan. I challenged myself in creating a unit plan on a subject I was familiar with because I knew the impact and purpose of learning about the dairy industry in Pennsylvania. However, this intent to be purposeful in sharing about an industry I am passionate about created stress. I wanted my students to see the passion and importance, but how could I do that in an introduction course? And better yet, only for 42 minutes for 15 days!?! This tasked me with condensing my knowledge and industry content together with hopes of creating a successful and purposeful unit for 12 ninth graders.

Round Two: Get Specific

Some people describe me as a detail-oriented individual, but in all honesty I do not enjoy thinking about details. Thinking requires a lot of brain power and focus, two things that are hard to acquire when you have the urge of senioritis. Therefore, I really don't like details, but I know details are essential to the success of my unit and lesson plans!  In my unit plan I knew I was leaving out some of the details just because I do not want to challenge my brain and focus. Yet, I didn't realize how crucial these details are until further class discussion.  I realized that my unit plans are not just to guide me, but they will help my students and my cooperating teacher while I am student teaching. Overall, I need to use brain power to focus on details as far as materials, objectives, adaptations and FFA/SAE integration.

Round Three: Receive and Believe in Positive Critical Feedback

I have always believed that positive and critical feedback is crucial to growth in skills; however, I have not figured out how to interpret critical feedback. I get offended and take things personally too easily. I try to be perfectionist and let this create a roadblock when someone would tell me that my work is not perfect, which caused me to get defensive. Also, I do not give myself the appropriate 24 hours of reflective period, I act immediately and do not give myself time to breath and reflect. I am realizing the need for critical feedback because I need to grow some skill sets to improve my unit plans in the future.

Again, I was presented with challenges and got knocked down a few times. However, I am now more determined to grow from this round and knock-out more successful and purposeful unit plans. 

"It's not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get up." -Vince Lombardi

It's About Them

After reading articles and watching TED Talk videos for Weekly Investment #5, I feel challenged as a future educator. I cannot help reflecting and acknowledging my personal experiences as a student to my future teaching in a classroom.

While watching the TED Talk entitled I'm 17 by Kate Simonds, I thought I should be writing down her thoughts and opinions. I found myself surprised with some things she shared, but I was also not shocked once I reflected on my own experience as a student.  I have been that student who felt like their ideas and concerns did not matter in the classroom.

However, my role is changing now, I am no longer the student sitting in the back of the classroom, I will be the teacher in the front. Now I face the challenge of how I can encourage students in my own classroom, so that they feel comfortable and vulnerable to share their ideas and concerns. I need to make this about them and not me. According to Ted Talk entitled Every Kid Needs a Champion, to do this I need to acknowledge the difference of being understood and understanding. To do this it involves creating relationships by choosing to ask, listen and letting students know that they matter. National FFA shared the following of points to remember to create an understanding environment.

• It’s about them: 
• What are the student’s needs and how can you coach them towards meeting challenges and creating solutions.
• Help students help themselves: 
• Your role is to help the student create positive solutions, not give them your answers.
• Be a good listener – allow student time to share and explain.
• Help students set realistic expectations – quick fixes usually don’t work. Patience and
• looking at the challenge differently may be needed to create a successful outcome.
• Check backs: Be sure to set up a time where you can check back with student. Keeps you
• informed on student progress and shows you care!

Throughout my educational journey, I have had many mentors share with me their belief in my creativity and intelligence, and to not fear sharing both with others. This grew my confidence and made me believe I mattered when I was younger. As a future educator, I realize the importance of understanding students. This is why effective questions, lesson plans and unit plans and reading page after page of theory matter because it challenges me to think of how I will do this.

All in all, this Weekly Investment made me realize that this experience is not about me, it is about my students.

References:
Cornell University Center for Teaching Excellence. (2015). Using Effective Questions. Retrieved from http://www.cte.cornell.edu/teaching-ideas/engaging-students/using-effective-questions.html

Dyer, J.E. (n.d.) Effective Questioning Techniques. Retrieved from https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/WC/WC08400.pdf

National FFA LifeKnowledge. (n.d.) Coaching Session Quick Reference Guide. Retrieved from
https://www.ffa.org/myresourcedocuments/coachingguide/Basics_of_Coaching/coaching_Guide/Lesson02/pdf/Individual-Coaching-Session-Quick-Reference-Guide.pdf

Pierson, Riata (2013) Every Kid Needs a Champion: Tedx

Simonds, Kate. (2015) I'm 17. Boise: Tedx.

Tae. (2012). Tweak Your Teach. Retrieved from: https://tweakyourslides.wordpress.com/2012/12/26/tweak-your-teach-dr-taes-building-a-new-culture-of-teaching-and-learning/

Recipe for Successful Group Work

After reading this week's Weekly Investment, I have made the realization that group work can be a recipe for success to student success.

I say this because just like grandma's delicious desserts; group work is about putting together ingredients (students) and blending them together. 


Preparation:

For grandma, it is all about the design of the kitchen and the access of her appliances and ingredients that allows her to bake delicious desserts. As a future educator, it is all about setting up my classroom for productive group work to occur. To conduct group work the classroom needs to be set up in a way that can be easily adapted to accommodate small groups of students working on material. Pods, or tables are somethings I want to implement in my own classroom.

Ingredients:

For grandma, it’s about mixing the right combination of sugar and flour and baking soda. As a future educator, it’s about determining the perfect combination of abilities and the right number of students for each group in my classroom.  Research has shown that four students gives just enough for active participation by all members and works well when the groups need to be split up smaller into pairs.

Directions:

For grandma, it’s about perfectly blending the ingredients together. As a future educator, it is about me finding classroom differentiation to meet all students’ needs. By distributing students into groups, while having students with varied multiple intelligence, yet students that are like, to work together at an even pace.

Serving:

For grandma, it’s about checking on the progress of the dessert as it bakes to ensure rising occurs. For the educator, it’s about prompting yourself to move around the classroom to ensure student engagement is in the activity. This allows the educator to observe, intervene and evaluate the groups to allow for student success.

Overall, group work group work can create success within the classroom. It should be designed to empower students to encourage success. It should help add variability to instruction and help reach students with varied multiple intelligence and maximize their learning.

Detours on the Journey of Teaching

As I reflect upon my First Day Lab, I can admit that I hit a roadblock.

Reflecting back to my summer reading, Burgess suggested that we allow ‘roadblocks’ to get in our way of our intentions of doing great things. These roadblocks can simply be the following:

1. The fear of failure
2. Believing you have to figure it all out before you begin
3. Perfectionism
4. Lack of focus
5. Fear of criticism or ridicule

I admit that the fear of failure and perfectionism are roadblocks that were presented with for the First Day Lab. Especially, since students were assigned roles to play, such as the teacher's pet, the confused student, and chatty student. Since, I try to be a perfectionist, I thought I had it all figured out in my head and things were going to go smoothly, but then I was presented with questions and comments that disrupted the flow of the lesson and led to my roadblocks. To explore these roadblocks, I shared some opps (areas of growth) from the lab.

Opps - 

• Enthusiasm. Due to fearing failure, I was not displaying the enthusiasm that I have about teaching agriculture. First impressions count!
• Clarity of Instruction. I noticed some areas were confusing for the students in the classroom during the interest approach. Due to confusion, I lost their attention.  I failed to successfully communicate and develop the lesson. 
• First Impressions. Going back to first impression counts. I would have liked to create a more energetic and positive feeling when my students walked into the room. Music probably would have been a good start – I like how Karlie utilized it.

I realize that these roadblocks are just delays in the experience. I have a further journey ahead of me, and time to make up for the minor detour. In addition, I realize what got me past those roadblocks, which were gems (areas of strength) in my lesson.

• Review. The first day my classroom included some very important material - classroom expectations, procedures and consequences. I felt that I designed an appropriate amount of time to review those. In addition, to providing a handout.
•  Variability of Instruction. There is so much that goes on the first day of school, and many opportunities to transition to different material and activities to keep students engaged.

I hope to overcome the fear of failure and perfectionism, so I can be successful and effective in communicating my instruction throughout the rest of my journey.

Planning For Instruction ... What’s the Plan?

What’s the plan? This is a common question presented during many situations. Whether we are planning a meeting or planning a family gathering, we want to know the details of how we are going succeed at meeting our purpose.

As a future educator, I ponder this question as I begin to develop learning objectives and interest approaches for unit and lesson plans.  Methods of Teaching Agriculture outlines three necessary components of learning objectives to planning:

These three requirements explain how learning objectives that outline performance, conditions and criteria helps to provide clarity for my students and I.  Methods of Teaching Agriculture shares how if teachers do not have a clear sight of where to go or how to get there, then the resulting instruction will become confusing and cause students to be lost. Overall, clarity tells students where we want them to end up, how we will measure if they made it there and the conditions that are expected during the performance.  Therefore, it is more desirable for me to have written instruction that includes action words, such as ‘identify’ and ‘measure’, verses ‘do’ or ‘can’. In addition, presenting the conditions and criteria with correct wording will allow for clarity. Being as clear as possible with instruction is essential to helping your students and me as a teacher answer "What's the plan?"

Once the objectives (plans) are created, it is time to create student interest by answering the question, “what is in it for me?” Although I will understand and know the importance of a topic as an educator, I have to share the relevance. However, it is important to create a desire in the students to want to learn about the topic. Methods of Teaching Agriculture suggested that to create an interest approach it is important to understand a true felt need for students to connect to from personal situations, so they can see the value. After reading this, I felt it is important to reflect back to last week’s reading because this importance is directly relates to in Caine’s Principles of Brain/Mind Learning Principle Two: The search for meaning is innate. Overall, the information I can learn about each individual student can easily be used for student engagement throughout upcoming lessons in my interest approach.

Knowing what is the plan, and what is in it for me helps create an outline of relevance to the importance of planning instructions, while developing students’ interest through interest approaches.

References

Mager, R.F. (1997) Preparing Instructional Objectives. (3rd ed.) The Center for Effective Performance. 
Reardon, M. & Derner, S. (2004) Strategies for Great Teaching. Chicago, Illinois: Zephyr Press

Inclusion of All Learners (IEP Part 1)

For the IEP Observation assignment, I chose to observe the agriculture science program at Bald Eagle Area High School.

On September 8^th, I completed my first 5 hours of observation. During the five hours, I was able to observe three diverse agriculture classes filled with students that had many diverse needs. Each class had multiple students with an individual education plan (IEP).  I was able to observe their interaction with Mr. Biddle, interaction with other classmates, behavioral issues and the teaching strategies that were used to accommodate or adapt to students’ needs.

To begin my morning at Bald Eagle, I was greeted by Mr. Biddle at the door of the Agricultural Science room. Since I arrived with 20 minutes left in his prep period, Mr. Biddle was able to share with me why and how Bald Eagle Area High School succeeds in accommodating to students with special needs. He recognizes the efforts of the community and support of parents because he believes their involvement is the most valuable to the success of the students. However, he also believes that teachers contribute to the success of students by helping them identify a skill set, while focusing and pushing students in an inclusive environment.

Mr. Biddle believes that Agriculture Sciences provides many opportunities to these students to find a skill set to thrive in. To ensure this Mr. Biddle implements tiered assignments. Tiered assignments do not lock students into ‘ability’ boxes. Instead, tiered assignments clusters students together, and assigns specific tasks within each group according to the student’s readiness and comprehension.

Example of tiered grouping used for
Introduction to Agriculture class

I was able to view tired assignments in action, when Mr. Biddle assigned his first project to his students in the Introduction to Agriculture (7^th and 8^th graders) class. To begin, he asked his students to divide themselves on interest. One corner of the classroom was for science/mathematics focused students, another corner was for artistic focused students, another corner was for the English literature focused students, and the last corner was for the students who did not know where they belonged. Once they separated this was a way for Mr. Biddle to take their strong abilities and create a high preforming group that included all unique learners. I honestly found this approach very interesting and appropriate because it appealed to multiple learners. In addition, it allowed the rigor of assignments to stay at a higher leave and made all students hold the same responsibility.

In addition to this assignment technique, I learned additional techniques that Mr. Biddle incorporated in all three classes. These techniques were the following:

• Repetition

• Once students answered a question, they had to repeat it back

• Applying to what they already know

• Did not except an excuse such as I do not know

• Assign easier task to lower students and harder task to high students, but presents equal amount of praise to both 

• Feelings chart 

• Showed how students felt before and after lesson

• Allowed students to hand in work late  full credit

• Students are responsible and should be held to equal standards

• Praise given at end of class for positive behavior

Overall, this observational experience was truly unique and I look forward to visiting again to learn more techniques of inclusion of all learners in the classroom.

#412 Week Investment Reflection TWO

Throughout my educational experince, I have realized that learning is natural process that takes times. In addition, the time that it takes for students to grasp and understand concepts do vary. In the text titled Strategies for Great Teaching, it suggest that the degree in which a student masters an activity is dependent on the quality of the learning experience itself  - “the quality of the moments when we are engaged with new information and experiences.” These engaging moments, which are referred to as E-moments, maximize learning by enhancing the ways learners can connect with the content presented.

When I think of what it takes to create engaging moments as a teacher, I begin to reflect with more meaning and understanding to thoughts from my summer reading with Weekly Investment #2 readings.

In the book Teach Like a Pirate, Dave Burgess suggested that teachers must build a rapport with the students to value and understand how to guide them throughout their experience in the classroom. This can be achieved by asking questions, listening, and even sharing. The information that a teacher can learn about each individual student can easily be used for student engagement throughout upcoming lessons. This directly relates to Principle Two: The search for meaning is innate, in Caine’s Principles of Brain/Mind Learning.

Principle two suggests creating interconnections between pieces of information to create meaning. The brain’s goal is to invest information with personal meaning from what is already known and experienced. Therefore, although I want my students to be as excited as I am for a subject, I believe it is more important to focus on understanding and knowing their interests and passions, and creating those CONNECTIONS between their interests and passions to the subject. I cannot expect to be an engaging teacher if I do not understand what engages my students. I need to take the initiative to create engagement in my students' learning experiences. 

Also, Principle Three: Emotions are critical, in Caine’s Principles of the Brain/Mind Learning suggest that positive emotions are needed to boost the brain’s ability. Teachers can foster this state by creating and maintain an environment that encourages students. Burgess suggested that teachers need to create/set up an environment that is safe physically, mentally and emotionally for all students. 

Although, I believe that students help to create the environment, the teacher sets the parameters and holds all accountable.  However, sometimes teachers need to be with their students in a moment to become the most effective in teaching for the comfort of the student(s).

In summary, the engaging moments are valuable because this is where I have the ability to hook the students’ interest. Overall, I want to be more than an engaging teacher. I want to be engaged to engage students.

References

Reardon, M. & Derner, S. (2004) Strategies for Great Teaching. Chicago, Illinois: Zephyr Press

Burgess, D. (2012) Teach Like A Pirate:  Increase Student Engagement, Boost Your Creativity, and Transform Your Life As an Educator. San Diego, California: Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc.

Explore Derry Area High School's Agrilculture and Horticulture Program

Check out this awesome video I created about my cooperating center for my cooperating center! If you have any additional questions, comment below.

Enjoy!