Reflections on Student Teaching ATHENS Style

 I had the privilege of student teaching at Athens Area High School in Bradford County, PA, under the direction of Mr. David Steinfelt (agriculture educator) and Dr. Laura Rice (university supervisor). I thoroughly enjoyed my experience and grew both personally and professionally.

I had an incredible time at Athens and learned an amazing amount! I learned about topics like pesticides safety and electrical wiring, I learned teaching strategies in a shop and classroom setting, I learned about communicating with students and other teachers, and I also learned a lot about myself! This experience was exciting, exhausting, exhilarating and life changing all at once, so the question is how can I share all of that in one blog post? Well, here are the top three things that I learned at while student teaching at Athens!

1)      Treasure the Light-Bulb Moments

Students sometimes don’t understand or they won’t listen or it has just been a really bad day. It is so important to recognize and treasure those Light-Bulb Moments!

Note on a unit reflection!

One of my students who didn't seem to care much in my Introduction to Agriculture class wrote this on their unit reflection on the unit about Careers in Agriculture! I was astounded by this, and count this as a victory! Later in the reflection they wrote "Thanks for teaching us," Wow, I will certainly treasure that unit reflection.

Yes this is a literal light-bulb moment! It is so easy to go great job know let’s grade this sucker so we can move on! NO!!! Celebrate this moment with your students, this is exciting stuff my friends!

 

2)      Its all about the Kids and the Community

There is so much drama, politics, and other shenanigans in education. Which is unfortunate, but the truth. It is really important to remember that in my classroom, Agriculture Education is ALL ABOUT THE KIDS AND THE COMMUNITY! It is very easy to get caught up in other things but the most important things are my students and the community that my school is in. Bottom line, no exceptions… Kids and Community. We need to be educating students so that they can succeed in any future endeavor, and we also need to be meeting and exceeding the needs of our community.

FFA Officers representing Athens FFA at the local Tractor Supply Store.

Here are students representing our chapter at the local Tractor Supply Store… BOOM Kids and Community!

Students walking to their next workshop at a leadership conference!

These are some of my students at a leadership conference for FFA. Seeking and providing opportunities for my students is very important.

3)      Remain Flexible!

The life of an Ag teacher is pretty crazy sometimes. We have field trips, competitions, guest speakers, events, exams, and so much more. It is really important to remain flexible. I was so upset one day because we just did NOT get enough done with the Horticulutre class. After discussing with my cooperating teacher we had an Ag Mechanics Class that was running ahead of schedule help us out in the Greenhouse, and it was a win! The Greenhouse was better, the students enjoyed the change of pace, and all was well.  We were even able to discuss how plumbing relates to horticulture via irrigation and hydroponics! It was a win win.

Dairy Judging Events are fun and exciting but require a field trip!

 

Here are some students at a Dairy Judsing Competition… which happened to be on just about the busiest Friday ever! It’s alright, sometimes you just have to roll with it!

If plan A doesn’t work, there are plenty more letters in the alphabet!

Changing up the room can make a huge difference! Remain flexible and don't be afraid to change

One day it just wasn’t working… so we had to change up the room a little and go from rows to a circle. This might sound silly or simple, but hey we were flexible and it worked!

I truly had an incredible time at my student teaching placement, and am so thankful to Mr. Steinfelt for sharing his classroom with me!

Thanks so much for reading

Best

Sarabeth Royer

 

Silver Linings... Last week of Student Teaching ATHENS Style

Hard to believe that this was my last week student teaching at Athens! WOW, the time has really flown by and as I sit and reflect on this experience, I am simply amazed! Amazed at all of the things that I have learned, the experiences I have had, the people who I have met, and the fact that I really am not ready to leave. Wow indeed.

 

Here is a recap of my not-so-traditional last week of student teaching.

 

Monday: SIX STUDENTS MAKE ATHENS FFA HISTORY BY ATTENDING REGIONALS PUBLIC SPEAKING EVENT

 

That's my headline for the day! This is the most students that Mr. Steinfelt has ever taken to the Regionals event! I am so incredibly proud of our students, and we have one senior who is moving on to the state competition!

This is our ATHENS Can-Do Attitude! Strutting our stuff on the way to Regionals! We got this!

 I was able to help out with the Safe Tractor Driving Competition. It was a nice experience to move to the next level seeing as I had helped with the county competition. I was also able to work with other teachers from the region.

Monday was a wonderful day for Safe Tractor Driving!

 What a great group of students to work with. I was so proud of these six students! Three freshmen blew me away with their maturity and hardwork. The sophomore, a somewhat shy student really went out of his comfort zone to compete. And our two seniors gave it their best for their last competition. Well done Athens FFA

Here they are! The 6 students making HISTORY by competing at Regionals! SO PROUD

 

 

 Tuesday & Wednesday: SEEING BRADFORD COUNTY'S DIVERSE PROGRAMS!

This is my headline for the middle of the week. Mr. Steinfelt was so upset about the whole strike situation, but I decided to make the most of this unique situation and visited two excellent programs in the County!

Tuesday I visited Canton High School with Mr. Hojnowski! His program is very unique and he actually teaches a lot of science courses as well. While visiting I was able to interact with students that I have seen at other county events.

I observed a fascinating astronomy class!

The inflatable planetarium for Astronomy class! Who even knew that this was a possibility!!!!

 We also decided to go out to the stream in the Ag Exploratory class. It was very fun to work with the students and help Mr. Hojnowski because it logistically is hard supervising 18 students in a stream.

Stream study! How clean is your water?

 Wednesday I visited Troy HS and worked with Mr. Schanbacher for the day. I was blown away by their ag mechanics program, and enjoyed asking as many questions as I could think of. Mr. Schanbacher is a wealth of knowledge, and I appreciated his candor and stories.

Ag Mechanics 1 was learning how to clean the Oxy-Acetylene tip.

I also observed Animal Science and Forestry classes. Interestingly enough, Troy HS is one of the oldest Ag Programs in the State. While they aren't the oldest FFA, they had agriculture education courses long before they got their charter.

I LOVE history! See Leslie Applegates signature on there, pretty neat!

 Thursday: ATHENS RETURNS TO SCHOOL

Boy was I glad to get back to school, I was so nervous that I wouldn't have the chance to say Thanks and Goodbye to all of my students.
Thursday was bit hectic, the students were wound up pretty good from the strike, but we had an EGG-celent class in Introduction to Agriculture.

How can we grade eggs without a candler? This was a really fun lab with the students.

Friday: ATHENS FFA CELEBRATES A YEAR OF LEARNING, HARD WORK, AND MEMORIES 

Friday was my last day of student teaching, and I was so happy to be able to tell the students how much they meant to me and how much I have learned from them. With a heartfelt thanks, I gave them all cookies and wished them luck. It was a good day and we also celebrated Earth Day!

One of my students even got me flowers! I was really touched by that

Then, it was finally time for the banquet, and we were expecting around 220 people, wowzers!

It was a full house at the Athens HS Cafeteria, where our FFA Banquet was held.

The FFA and SAE Leadership Class planned the event, and it went very well. I was so proud of the students, and happy that they were able to show off their hard work and skills. Awards were handed out, speeches were given, tears were shed, memories were shared, and applause was given. It was truly a wonderful evening.

We were happy to hand out many awards.

At the end of the night, I was very sad to know that my student teaching experience was over, but it was really nice to be able to meet the families of the students who have come to mean so much to me!

Pictures for Days!

And of course, we had help cleaning up the banquet!

How else can you clean up balloons?

Hard to believe that my student teaching experience is over. It is with a heavy heart that I say thanks to Mr. Steinfelt and the Athens Agriculture Program and FFA for teaching me so much more than what can be recorded on a lesson plan.

Love
Sarabeth

Student Teacher Perspective on School Strike

One interesting and unexpected lesson that I have taken away from student teaching is that there is a lot of politics in education. I'm not saying it's good or it's bad, but there are a lot of people involved! Between teachers, students, taxpayers, unions, school boards, and administrators, there are many different people coming to the table all to serve the community through education.

My last week of student teaching involved a three day strike. The teachers at Athens Area High School have been without a contract for 3.5 years, and negotiations sadly were not going very well.

I was able to attend a school board meeting held the Tuesday night before the strike happened, and it was very interesting to hear the many remarks from teachers, parents, and taxpayers. Unfortunately, the school board was not answering questions at the meeting, but it was eye-opening to hear all of the different viewpoints.

Here is a newspaper article from the school board meeting.

 There are so many items to consider: Changing graduation, halting state testing, changing the school year, what about childcare, how can students get lunch if they need it? Many different items were brought up, and I was very glad to be at the meeting  but could certainly understand the frustration of not having very much information. As a student teacher at the High School, I work with the students everyday who were just as confused and apprehensive as I was, and also with the teachers who were unable to talk about the situation. I definitely understood and appreciated the struggle for the teachers who wanted to share but could not.

The strike went from Monday to Wednesday.

 One stressful part was figuring out the logistics for our field trip on Monday. We had six students competing in the Regionals Public Speaking competition. After several phone calls and emails, Mr. Steinfelt and I were both able to go on the trip as long as the FFA paid for the transportation. This was very exciting, and I was glad to see the Union and School District all working together for the students.



Some of the teachers logged it and walked around 45 miles in the 3 day strike!

Throughout the strike, teachers picketed in the morning and performed community service in the afternoon. From helping out at the firehouse to providing free lunches for students, the teachers gave back to the Athens community.

While the school board and union still have not been able to reach an agreement, the School Union decided to end the strike for the students. In order to maintain a speedy graduation and continue with the school year the union agreed to end. However, we are all hoping that the negotiations committee will continue to work hard to write a fair contract!

My biggest take-away from this experience and other conversations with Mr. Steinfelt is to be involved in the community so that they will come and support you if things like this happen. It is also important to be involved and aware about school board happenings and what the union is doing. We are all hopeful that this will not cause major rifts in the lovely community of Athens.

Best
Sarabeth



Electrical Wiring,.. Plumbing Practicums! Wait What are we Doing!!!

During our student teaching experience this semester, we have had several assignments to help keep us on track. The SLO (or Student Learning Objective) / Action Research Projects are both items very common in Pennsylvania Classrooms. In this assignment we were able to combine these two items into one project

More info: SLOs https://www.pdesas.org/Page?pageId=7
Action Research http://edglossary.org/action-research/

My SLO/ Action Research Project was based in my Ag Mechanics I Class. Here is a quote of my Problem Statement:

 

There are two sections of the Agriculture Mechanics I Class at Athens Area High School. Classes meet during periods 3 and 7. Not having much experience in these areas as a new and beginning teacher, I want to know how much the students learn during this unit, and if there is a difference between the two sections. While one will be learning electricity, the other section will be working on plumbing. The goal is to evaluate student learning based off of the unit goals. Students will rate their competency before and after each unit based off of the unit goals. The researcher will then examine the difference between the pre and post-test to evaluate the student’s perception of their own learning. This research will affect the students as well as the researcher. The students can self-evaluate their learning and the instructor can see how closely the curriculum relates to the unit goals, and the instructor can evaluate the units based off of student learning.

In third period, we were examining Electricity and Electrical Wiring

Students engaging in the Battery Lab for the Electricity Unit. This lab directly related to one of the objectives.

 

One of my favorite pictures from the Electrical Wiring Practicum portion..Gotta love the Light Bulb Moment!

Here is some more information about the unit and students perceptions of their competency for the objectives.




Here is an infographic describing the results for the Electrical Wiring Unit

The seventh period class was studying Plumbing Safety and Careers, and Plumbing Skills.

Here is an example of the survey given to my students studying plumbing:

 

Rate your own ability to complete these objectives 1-10

 (1= I have NO idea!) (10= I could teach this!)

 Plumbing Safety

OBJECTIVE	RATING (1-10)
Demonstrate the importance of plumbing in everyday life.
Identify important parts in the history of plumbing, and it’s relation to health and sanitation
Demonstrate working safely in an agricultural shop setting.
List different careers that relate to plumbing
Name common tools for plumbing
Use common tools for plumbing properly
Name common parts for plumbing.

Plumbing Practicum

OBJECTIVE	RATING (1-10)
Perform the skills necessary to accomplish basic plumbing jobs
Able to solder copper tubing
Demonstrate safe use of common plumbing tools
Describe the purposes for various plumbing fittings, materials, and tools
Create a plumbing square project utilizing copper, PVC, galvanized steel, and flexible plastic tubing along with the appropriate fasteners.

 

Soldering supplies! This was one of the objectives for the Plumbing Unit.

Here students are acquiring their supplies for the Plumbing Square Project.

You can learn more about my students' view of the Plumbing Unit by reviewing the infographic below.





Here is an infographic describing the results for the Plumbing Practicum Unit

 This process was very helpful just to go through the steps of filling out an SLO and conducting Action Based Research. This project also allowed me to discuss these items with not only my cooperating teacher and supervisor, but other educators as well.

Thanks for reading

Best

Sarabeth

Project Grow: Community Based Unit of Instruction

One of the most exciting parts of a successful Agriculture Education Program is their integration with the community! Classes, activities, and curriculum should be related and relevant to the community in which the students live.

 

For my Community Based Unit of Instruction, I decided to use an already existing partnership with Project Grow, and add another element to the curriculum. The Athens Horticulture class has grown heirloom plants for project Grow in the Greenhouse for about four years now. The Organization's main goal is to provide healthy and nutritious food to the community, and to encourage and teach people about gardening practices. The seedlings are then transplanted to community gardens throughout the community and neighboring School Districts. You can learn more about Penn-York Valley Project Grow at this website ----> https://valleyprojectgrow.org/

This is a guest speaker from Project Grow talking to the Horticulture Class about the organization.

The guest speaker, a board member from Project Grow explained the organizations main goals and mission. She also talked to the students about Heirloom vs. Conventional Seeds, and the importance of communicating with consumers about horticulture and gardening. The students were also introduced to other volunteer opportunities within the organization.

Here are some of the seeds that Project Grow provided for our Program to plant.

So... STEP ONE: Plant the seeds!
With a pretty hectic Spring Schedule, we had all hands on deck for planting. The Horticulture Class, as well as some of the Ag Mechanics Classes helped us to plant the seeds out in the Greenhouse. We had to clear out some of our hydroponics systems to make room!

We added a shade cloth to protect the young plants and seedlings from the sunlight

We prepared the media by adding water and removing clumps! This was very interesting to teach the Ag Mechanics Classes!

Now it is time to plant the seeds! Tomato and Pepper seeds are very small!

Finally, the classes made an assembly line to move the flats from one Greenhouse to the other, where there would be more room for the new plants.
 

This was a fun and exciting time in the Greenhouse! Then came time for STEP TWO: Community Cards Project. The students were then tasked with creating infographics or cards that would communicate something about horticulture to the general public. Students were told this was in essence their "Passion project!" so they could choose a vegetable or fruit, a controversial topic in horticulture, a lesson that we had learned so far in class... Basically anything that they thought consumers should know about plant production. Then students were provided with a rubric and description of best practices to include in their project.

This is the example Piktochart that I created and provided the students! This was a fun project for me, and the students had never used Piktochart before, so it was neat to see them learn and engage with the technology!
 

These projects will hopefully be displayed at ArtsFest on May 1st. This is a fun festival where many community members come to see the art displayed by the school and community. The Athens Agriculture Program generally has a plant sale and petting zoo, so there are many opportunities to engage with community members.





We as a class definitely want to engage with the community during ArtsFest!

While the project is not finished yet, I am very excited to see not only how the plants grow, but also how much consumers will be able to learn about horticulture through my students! This was a really exciting unit to plan and teach!

Best
Sarabeth



It's the FINAL COUNTDOWN! Student Teaching ATHENS Style

WOW, it's the final countdown, this past week was my second to last week at Athens! With the issues regarding the teachers contracts and possible work stoppages due to a strike, every activity and lesson last week I wondered if it would be my last! It is certainly hard to contemplate the fact that I am almost entirely done with student teaching. I am going to be honest, I am not ready to leave Athens, I love it here! Regardless of my own personal countdown or my own feelings, we had a lot going on this week, so here is a short recap!

Special Guests!
Monday we had Mrs. Johnson, a masters student in Agriculture Education from New York state come visit us! It was very interesting to talk with her and contrast the differences between our education experiences for Ag Ed. She was very excited to visit our program and see all of the incredible happenings at Athens. Some items that she witnessed was my horticulture class playing a Kahoot review game (SO MUCH FUN! I actually also did it in my Intro class later in the week!) and students working on projects in Ag Mechanics.

It's certainly spring time! We are expecting more lawnmowers in the shop soon!

Learning IS fun with Kahoot, a review game that we played with laptops!
The competition was fierce, even Mr. Steinfelt played!!!!!

 

Tuesday we had another guest visit! Dr. Rice came to evaluate me for the second time, and I was so appreciative of the advice, comments, and tips that she provided with me throughout the day. The students were then all wondering, who would show up to class on Wednesday!

GREENHOUSE PREPARATION!

This week we spent a lot of time in the Greenhouse! After finishing up our unit on Pesticide Safety, we needed to dedicate some serious time to the Greenhouse in preparation for new arrivals (plants should be coming next week) AND planting tomatoes and peppers for Project Grow (as part of our Community Based Unit of Instruction.) It is certainly much nicer to be in the Greenhouse lately with the warmer weather, and we also had some of our others classes help in the Greenhouse as well!

 

Students are preparing media for the plants. Once we got started, we had a nice assembly line going! Some students got the soil ready, others placed containers in the trays, some shoveled soil into the trays, while other students planted seeds and watered new transplants. It was an impressive system.

With warmer days approaching, we put a shade cloth over the Greenhouse... Yeah, we definitely had some of the boys from Ag Mech II help us out with this project!

 

BANQUET PREPARATION!

Hard to believe but our FFA Banquet is April 22nd! So this week included a lot of work from the SAE/FFA class to ensure that everything is ready for the banquet. I divided the class into three committees: Logistics and Script, Food and Decorations, and Decorations and Powerpoint. This kept the students pretty busy this week.

 



Plaques, plaques for days!

 

 

Students working in class to ensure our banquet is a success! #Teamwork #Winning #FFABanquet

 

Field Trip!

Friday was not only incredibly beautiful outside, but it was particularly beautiful because we were outside to enjoy it! The Bradford County Dairy Judging Competition, planned by Mr. Steinfelt, was held in Shesequin, PA. We had around 45 students come and compete from Athens, Canton, and Troy. It was a great day to work with the students and learn a little bit more about dairy judging. Our hosts were so generous with their time and knowledge. I was blown away by their willingness to take extra time to talk over a class with our students. Additionally, it was exciting because the official judge was a 2012 graduate of Athens! Very cool!

Students competing in the Dairy Judging Competition, held in Sheshequin PA.

Students from Athens, Canton and Troy at the Bradford County Dairy Judging CDE

 This week was wonderful! The most challenging parts related to circumstances outside of my control, so my biggest goal for the week was to only worry about things that I can affect. This was really helpful! I also learned valuable lessons about community support and school board meetings. While the school board meeting that I attended earlier this year was a very positive experience (students sharing experiences in FFA with a powerpoint) the meeting this week was not as casual. With discussions of contracts and strikes in the air, it was interesting to be in a room with so many different groups. My biggest take-away from this somewhat stressful school board meeting was that taxpayers, teachers union, school board... no matter what, everyone want's what is best for the students.

Goals for next week, to maximize my last week at Athens. Whether or not the AEAA union goes on strike, I have events and projects that I can work on in Athens.

Wish us all luck!
Best
Sarabeth

 

Mock Interview: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly!

Today I had a mock interview with our seasoned principal at Athens Area High School! In his first day as acting principal, our previous vice principal Mr. Mosher was kind enough to give me an hour of his time after school on his first day! What a champ! I so appreciated his time, comments, advice, and interview questions.

So let's get to it, the good, the bad, and the ugly!

1. Here are some examples of the questions that Mr. Mosher asked:

- Tell me a little bit about your background and experiences in education.
- Tell me about the routine or a normal day in your classroom.
- What is your knowledge of LFS and APL?
- Tell me about differentiated instruction and please provide examples from your past teaching experiences.
- Are you familiar with Common Core Standards? Please provide examples of how.
- What questions do you have for me?

2. My Responses:

Whew! First, I was surprised by how long the interview was knowing that Mr. Mosher was very busy, so I was so thankful for the practice and help!

I felt prepared for the more personal or opinion based questions. I was very happy with my introduction and was glad to have been able to practice that at the April 1st seminar in State College. Other questions that allowed me to provide specific examples from student teaching at Athens or from my experiences at college and living on a farm were really nice. I tried to integrate as many specific examples as possible, and Mr. Mosher said that this helped a lot.

The questions about specific items like LFS and APL were a tad harder. I knew what LFS was, but wasn't exactly use about APL. I was very honest and told Mr. Mosher that I didn't know what APL was but if he called me tomorrow around 3:30 I would be more familiar with the topic.

LFS:http://www.athensasd.k12.pa.us/lfs 
APL: http://www.aplassociates.com/

He said when in doubt be honest, but that I should have been able to answer the LFS question! After all Athens is a Learning Focused School, so I could have briefly answered the question, and then provided some sort of example from student teaching to tie me over to the next question!

3. MY TURN! What did I ask the administrator?

I had several questions written down, and I just asked him and we discussed if they were good versus him actually answering them. He also provided me with some ideas of questions that candidates generally ask, so that was helpful.

- What are you looking for in an ideal candidate?
- What are your short and long term goals as a district for the Agriculture Education Program
- May I have a tour of the facilities?
- What is the best part of this School District, and what is one area where there is room for improvement?
- Could you talk more about the community here at Athens.


I was so impressed that Mr. Mosher spend so much time with me, providing advice and answering my questions! It was very helpful to talk to him about tips and best practices! We also discussed portfolios. Mr. Mosher suggested having a smaller packet that I could leave with the interviewers so that it didn't distract from me, and then there was something helpful that they could see to remind them of me after my interview! Smart man!


Overall this was an incredible experiences, and I really enjoyed this assignment. It was relevant, impactful, and definitely great practice. Shout-out to Mr. Mosher for his time and advice!

Best
Sarabeth