The Chronicles of Becoming an Ag Educator

I have always been impressed with Pennsylvania FFA's State Legislative Leadership Conference. For those of you who are not aware SLLC is a conference for FFA members to investigate and amend pieces of real legislation while utilizing parliamentary procedure. In addition, students will gain leadership skills, participate in a community service activity, and meet with legislators. This conference is unique and truly gives students a glimpse into the legislative process. Over the years I have experienced SLLC from many different views. Years ago as a student I learned so much about the legislative process, that extended far beyond what I had previously learned in a Civics and Government Course. I then helped facilitate SLLC as a State FFA Officer. Each experience offered me something more to learn, however this SLLC was truly one for the books. This was my first SLLC experience as an FFA adviser. I continued to learn right along side my students and also enjoyed my time interactin

Activities on activities on activities, this week was all about application. Over the last several weeks there has been quite a bit of content knowledge given to my students and this week was there chance to apply what they learned in a variety of ways. This is one of the many reasons that I love agricultural education as it provides students the opportunity to practice what they have learned, hands on. I believe it is vital to give students opportunities to learn in a variety of applications to truly meet the needs of all learners. There was a wide variety of application happening across the board this week, making the week fly by even faster than normal. In agsciences 2 and 3 this week students worked diligently on their shop projects. In agscience 3 some students finished up copper square projects as others finished up their combination squares. This presents a challenge I am currently trying to work through. How do I ensure all students are on  the same page with their project

It’s the end of the week already?! Each day I find myself asking where the time has gone. The last several weeks have truly flown by and I’m afraid the last few remaining weeks won’t be much different. Even looking at each day as 2:45 rolls around I feel eager to keep teaching as my time in the day seems to disapeer. This week I continued to teach a full load of classes aiding in the day going by faster than I could blink. This week I truly enjoyed continuing to make connections with students who before seemed to be so quite. I heard students speak up that are normally quiet telling me they enjoy my class. It certainly gave me all the feels. While i’ve had my highs of teaching i’ve experienced the lows as well. This week I was challenged a little more than normal by a class. My often layed back manor in the classroom was put on the back burner for a hot second. We had to take a few minutes to return to our classroom expectations and consequences. While this class has challanged me a

This week I learned that nothing gets students more hyped for learning than incorporating food into a lesson. It has been my mission since I started this student teaching journey to identify ways to incorporate variability into the classroom. Over the last several weeks I have tested out the basic power-point with guided notes, inquiry based learning, group work, utilizing technology, and the list could go on. This week the list continued to grow as I add to my teacher tool box as I added food to that list. In Ag 2 during the MIG, TIG, and Plasma unit we were preparing for the long hall of getting hands on practice running beads in the shop. However, before we really get into the shop I thought it was important to introduce each of the six welds students would need to be producing for a grade. I first split students up into six groups, assigning each group to a different weld to explore using their I-Pads. After giving them some time to investigate their weld they introduced it to th