Trying Something New

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 projects while working with the tools available? In addition, I am trying to figure out the best way to go about students being absent on shop days to ensure they don't fall behind. This are all issues that I never paid much attention to but now that i'm facing them in the teacher roll I realize the challenge they present. Similar challenges are being faced in agscience 2 as some students are very close to finishing their required welds while some students have turned in very few. How do I keep students busy or challenge those who show strengths in welding without creating busy work? Currently I have students who have shown to be exceptional welders working with their peers to help guide them through the welds they need to complete. While some days having peers work together seems like a great ideas, other days the student that are ahead seem bored and even sometimes act up because of it. Over my last couple of weeks i'm going to be looking for ways to improve in this area.

In animal science and agscience 1 students were working on some projects of their own. Ag Science 1 students were investigating agriculture careers and designing an technology based poster. I have grown to find the ThingLink poster app on their I-Pads to be such a useful tool. ThingLink allows students to be creative designing a poster digitally without all the mess of regular poster projects. However, I think it's fun to add in the creativity of traditional posters from time to time and that's exactly what we are doing in animal science. I have always heard that the best ag teachers are also the best thieves, this week I put that to the test. One of my classmates had a neat idea for ruminant digestive systems that you can feel. This activity fit in great with my lessons for this week as I had students deign a touch and feel ruminant digestive system to be utilized during our kindergarten visit.

All in all this week was a great week! I continue to learn new things every day, with little fear of trying out new ideas. I face challenges that will make me a better teacher in the long run and for that i'm thankful. Here's to the last few weeks of my exciting teach ag journey!

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