Week Seven: A FULL Week

Wow, time sure does fly when you're having fun! This past week was my seventh week at Cumberland Valley and it was my first week teaching a FULL course load. 

I now have a Plant Science class, an Introduction to Agriculture class, a Food Science class, an Animal Science class, and three Environmental Science classes. Really the only major difference for me this was going from two classes of Environmental Science to three. So, the amount of preparation was the same, I just had less time in my day to be grading, writing lesson plans, and completing assignments. 

Student teaching sure is a rollercoaster ride, so with that, I thought I would share some peaks and pits from week seven.

Peaks:

• Two passion projects collide

Previously, I interned with the Pennsylvania Friends of Agriculture Foundation (the nonprofit of the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau) for two summers. One of my main tasks was planning for Ag Literacy Week, which takes place the third week in March. This year's book selection was Chuck's Ice Cream Wish: Tales of the Dairy Godmother. This week, Cumberland Valley FFA members recorded virtual readings for second-grade classrooms to view during Ag Literacy Week. It was a really neat experience to see the materials and activities I had helped develop for Ag Literacy Week be put into action by some of my students. 

• Applied for my first teaching position

Also, this week I applied to my first teaching position. I am classifying this as a peak because I am very excited to continue looking for my fit and finding a career that allows me to continue educating others about agriculture.  

• Midterm evaluation

This week also marked the midpoint of my student teaching internship. At this time, my cooperating teacher, Ms. Case, and I sat down to assess my strengths and weaknesses thus far. I really appreciated how Ms. Case asked me to do a self-evaluation and then we compared scores and discussed the differences in our ratings. One of the areas I originally rated myself lower in was clarity when giving directions. Ms. Case disagreed and thought it was actually one of my strengths. To get a third opinion, we asked a student who was working on Zoom for her opinion. She said that she agreed with Ms. Case. This opened my eyes to the importance of feedback not just from supervisors, but also students! My midterm evaluation also helped me reassess my areas of focus. In the coming weeks, I would like to shift my focus to higher-level questioning and formative assessment. 

Pits: 

• There is never enough time

As the amount of time in my school day that can be used for preparing for class, grading, and writing lesson plans dwindles, I have found it to be even more important for me to be intentional with my time. This week, I gave myself very specific tasks to complete at school that I knew would be easy to accomplish in between periods or as students were working in class and very specific tasks to complete after school for when I had more time to focus and thoroughly think through what I was working on. This worked very well at the beginning of the week, but as the week went on there was always something popping up that demanded my immediate attention putting my other tasks on the back-burner. 

• Microwave mishap

I would like to start off this anecdote by saying nobody was harmed or injured during this Animal Science lab. However, there was a minor Monday morning microwave mishap (how about that for alliteration!) this week. My Animal Science students were working on a dry matter lab in which they would calculate the amount of water in feedstuffs. In order to do this, they had to dry the feedstuff samples in the microwave and record the weight change several times. Just seconds after the first students put their samples in the microwave an orange glow filled the microwave. I quickly assessed the situation, asked the students to move back, and turned off the microwave and the orange glow died down. All this commotion and my cooperating teachers informed me that that specific microwave was "going to die any day" and I was just the unlucky person it happened to...just my luck on a Monday morning. In the end, we were able to safely finish the dry matter lab using the second microwave. 

#PSUAgEd2021 - what were some peaks and pits of your week? When will you be tackling a full course load?