Being a leader in the classroom: Leadership styles lesson

Students discussing their strengths and weaknesses

Coming out of the blue jacket was a struggle for me. Trying to figure out who I was if I was not a FFA member was probably the hardest and the best thing that has ever happened to me.

The same is true for finding the difference between facilitation and teaching. As a state FFA officer in Connecticut I got to work facilitate with members from across the state on leadership. As I start to develop and execute lessons I tend to lean more towards facilitation then teaching especially when it comes to any topic of leadership or FFA. 

Friday I had the opportunity to teach a leadership styles to my future students at Conrad Weiser. I had 23 students and we worked through different activities to find their leadership styles and how to use them in a team.

What did I learn?

Students taking a leadership style survey

• Tech fails: Sometimes technology fails and that is okay. We can just keep going. I had several moments in my lesson when google docs didn't work or my polls everywhere survey didn't work either. I just made adaptions to be able to my lesson as I went to get the same idea across a different way. 
• Be honest with your students: There was a set of directions and a question I just said in a bad way. It was confusing and I realized that quickly. I paused and said to my students that I am sorry I worded that weirdly let's try again. I think this made my students respect me and showed them it is okay to make mistakes when we are learning. 
• Do not talk over students: When I first started my lesson I kept trying to talk over students or asked them to be quiet. As I went on I just became silent and looked at them. This then became the signal that I was trying to speak and we needed to hear what I said. Students quickly became quite down instead of getting louder.

Planning a party activity

What would I have changed?

• Print copies: I used google docs for students to complete a survey. In the future I would print this and have them do it as a hard copy or make it a google survey. This way it had clearer expectations and I wouldn't have struggled with technology to access this. The document got cut off in their version on the chromebooks. 
• Clearer scenarios: In the lesson students had to plan a friendsgiving party. I did not give them parameters on this party and I got a lot of responses of bringing alcohol. I could have gave them parameters that narrowed in on a party for their classroom to make it more appropriate for school.

Overall this experience was one of my favorite labs I have done so far. I had a great time working with the students and look forwards to student teaching.

Southington+Juniata Valley=Conrad Weiser: How did teaching at JV Prepare me for my Internship?

Slide about me used to connect with students

A conversation that occurred daily in my a high school animal science class:

Mrs.Digioia: "Gagné you're going to be an agriculture teacher."
Me: "That is not going to happen"
Mrs.Digioia: "We will see"

Throughout my time as a Southington FFA member I always fought the idea of being a teacher especially an agriculture teacher. Now I am 4 years into my degree in Agricultural and Extension Education and I am finally realizing why Mrs.Digioia pushed me so hard to be an agriculture teacher. It was this week that I was able to interact with students in "my own" class setting that gave me that concrete evidence that I am still on the right track.

What was the experience I had?

This week I got to go to Juniata Valley in Alexandria,Pa and teach one period of Introduction to Agriculture to Mrs.Russell's 8th grade class. I spent one day observing Mrs.Russell teach the class and 3 days teaching the class about the agriculture industry in Pennsylvania and Connecticut in comparison to the rest of the country.

Being from Connecticut and not that familiar with Pennsylvania agriculture or production agriculture made me nervous going into this experience. I knew that some of my students had strong production backgrounds and probably knew more than I did at time but, that became an interesting roll in my classroom.

What did I learn?

• It is okay not to know everything: There were several questions that I had no idea what the answer would be such as "can cows eat cotton?" We used these time to research answers and got the students thinking in ways I did not imagine they would! 



Students reflecting on different states
agriculture industry

• Know your students: The first day I had them create name tags about themselves and I told them about me. I always was told to do this but, never understood the power behind it. I had students asking me questions and not being afraid to answer questions even if they were not the most correct answer. I developed a relationship with them in a short amount of time and we were able to learn and have fun. Doing that exercised showed I cared about them and I wasn't just there to be there.

How can I better manage my classroom?

• Grouping: I tried 2 different grouping methods and both times the students who probably shouldn't have been together were. I ended up checking in and providing guided questions to help keep them on track with the task at hand but, I need to be mindful of how I am grouping my students. 
• Music: I allowed each group to suggest 2 songs for me to make a playlist for the class. The students enjoyed this and it was a fair process of selecting music for the class. I did one day with music and one day without. Students were just as productive each day they were working.



Exit slip from day 2!

• Engaging students: In group work (groups of 2/3) these was mainly one student doing most of the work and the other ones not as engaged. I choose to handle this by asking students in the groups individually to look up a certain part of the project they were working on. This helped bring them into the group. I overall need to focus a-lot on this and practice ways to engage all student not just half. 

Closing Questions?

• How can I engage all students in a group project?
• How do you handle students who may know more about the content then you?

Trusting The Process: Learning From Other Teachers

This week I will be teaching 3 days at Juniata Valley High School. The class will be an 8th grade into to agriculture class. I am very excited to work with the teacher there Mrs.Russell to teach her class about Pennsylvania agriculture and the differences between Pa and the rest of the country. As I prepare for this experience I am thinking of how this fits into my Teach Ag Journey.

How do this connect to my Teach Ag journey?

1.Real life experience with kiddos: Through this experience I get to try some lessons and pedagogies to see how they work before I try them with students who I will be working with for 15ish weeks. I can make small mistakes here with students who might not even remember I was in their class come the end of the semester. 

2. I can receive a different point of view on teaching strategies: I get to work with an awesome mentor teach and get great feedback from my cooperating teacher and university supervisors but, this gives me yet another resources to add into my teaching tool box.

3.Teaching middle school: My dream job would be teaching a middle school agriculture class. While I am student teaching I will work with 5-12th graders. This gave me an idea of what this class looks like.

How does this experience connect to other classes?

1.Agricultural and Extension Education(AEE) 412: I designed my lessons while micro teaching to be inquiry based instruction since we just got back from the Pennsylvania Future Agriculture Science Teacher Symposium in Harrisburg where we talked about inquiry based instruction.

2. Agricultural and Extension Education (AEE) 100: During my time in AEE 100 I observed a middle school science classroom in Bristol,Ct. I watched the lesson of the day which was "How do animal adaptations allow for survival?" This lesson was designed as an inquiry based lesson where students were researching different animals and creating a powerpoint on them. The teacher was very hands off with the class and let students figure it out on their own.
This is something I tend to struggle with. Before this lesson at Juanita Valley I will pull out some key characteristics of this teacher to help manage my classroom but, allowing growth of my students in the content.

What is one resource to help prepare me for this experience?

 This blog form Aj Juliani talks about how teachers learn best from other teachers because we experience similar things and can understand what the other one is going through. Relying on other teachers is a great way to reflect on your teaching and to do better for your students.

 

PA Fast Symposium: Reflecting on the experience

This past weekend I had the opportunity to attend the Pennsylvania Future Agriculture Science Teachers (FAST) Symposium with the rest of my cohort in Harrisburg,Pa. We focused on inquiry based instruction in essentially a 10 hour bootcamp between the 2 days.

What did I learn?

1.  Strategies for implementing inquiry based instruction: I got to experience being a student through different activities such as experiments and break out boxes. The break out boxes was a new experience for me and I really enjoyed it. The idea is that students follow clues to get codes to get into the locks and then once in the box I can have anything in there for them to do or reflect on. 
2. Literacy strategies: A lot of time with inquiry based instruction students are solving problems on their own. With this we need to make sure they can navigate through sources and be able to get the take aways. One that I liked was partner highlighting. Students go through and highlight their own paper and then highlight what their partner highlighted as a partner and them talk through the article.

Inquiry Based Instruction: Blues Clues Edition

 This week I deep dived to figure out what is inquiry based instruction and how I can implement it into my classroom?

I found several different resources and put the clues together to determine what this method actually is. I realize after reading that this method is extremely student centered and helps students explore content. One article discussed the idea of questions and inquiry based learning.

We always ask "what questions are there?" but, the student might not even know what question to ask until they have time to explore and play with the content. They need to find the clue themselves and put them together.



The Clues of learning
I see this process being laid out in different "clues" kinda similar to the 90's Tv show Blues Clues!
Clue #1: students are exposed to some sort of content either in depth or an overview.
Clue #2: Students get to explore content in several different ways. This can be personalize project times, case studies, questioning or research.
Clue #3: Students reflect and review the content in a way that allows for a deeper understanding.
Putting these together students get a well rounded and personalized experience with the content.

After doing some research I am still not an expert in inquiry based instruction. Below are some questions I still have:

To my future students

 What is one thing in agriculture that you are still curious about and how do you want to explore that topic?

For my university supervisor 

How can I use inquiry based instruction to drive/support students supervised agricultural experience (SAE) projects?

For my cohort

How do you plan on handling questions not immediately pertaining to what you are teaching? Do you want to answer then as they come up and possibly come off track, use a parking lot, have time set aside or any other ideas for answering questions not immediately pertaining to class?

This week I will be attending Ag Ed Inquiry Institute in Harrisburg,Pa and I am excited to be able to dig deeper in inquiry based learning and get some practice with the method as well with help from Krista Pontius from Greenwood High School!

Letting Go of the Reins: Inquiry Based Instruction

Loose reins=better communication

When we ride a horse we talk about the communication between the horse and rider using many aids but our reins are a main one. If I am always pulling on them and only using my reins both of us are going to get frustrated and no one is enjoying the ride at that point. The same idea is true for the classroom.

As a preservice teacher I tend to want to "keep the reins" as I start designing lessons. I tend to get caught up on the idea that I need to tell my students everything in order for them to learn it. What I am quickly learning is that we need to give students freedom to learn on their own time and in their own space.Inquiry based instruction is one way to help create that environment for students.

3 ideas I want to bring into my class:

1. Planning is still required for an inquiry based learning lesson: As the teacher I have to have a specific question or problem trying to be solved and and activity that walks the students through the process of finding said solution. 
2. How to give the information needed to be successful: It is also my role in this process to give the students an overview of the information that will be needed to be successful in solving the problem but, just enough of that information for them to be able to learn on their own. While the students are inquiring about the problem I can assist students to lower frustration but, I do not provide the content during this time.
3. Encourage student discussion: When students are sharing our their finding allow students to discuss back and forth about their findings and the connection between them. 

2 connections to my #TeachAgJourney:

1. Earlier this semester I did a demo lesson using the problem solving approach.There two methods are closely related. The difference between the two is problem solving has one solution whereas inquiry based instruction can have several solutions. 



The process of inquiry based instruction

2. Earlier in the semester we discussed how to create interest in our classroom. Lancelot was the theorist we focused on and his primary and secondary principles of interest. One of his primary principles is "A subject is interesting if it affects us, others around us or humanity at large." Inquiry based learning can be the drive behind creating interest by connecting students to issues that affect them, others in their life or humanity.

An Additional Source: 

This article is from Edutopia and it discusses a teacher from New Jersey who changed the way she taught DNA in her Biology class to an inquiry lesson and her reflection on it! 

What is Ms.Gagne wondering on inquiry based instruction?:

Besides student research using laptops/cell phones how have you incorporated inquiry based instruction to your classroom?

National FFA Convention Reflection

My first FFA Convention

2012: National Horse Judging CDE
2013: Southington FFA Vice President
2014: Connecticut FFA Delegate
2015: American Degree Recipient
2016: National FFA Facilitator
2017: Penn State ATA Parli Pro contestant
2018: Penn State Parli Pro Intern
2019: Advisor with Conrad Weiser FFA

For the past 8 years I have attended the National FFA Convention and Expo.Each year I see the convention in a different form from member to alumni and colligate member. This year I got to look at the convention from the eyes of an advisor.

I attended the convention with Conrad Weiser FFA who took 3 students in agriscience fair and 4 students as chapter delegates. Part of my job this year was to help those students get the agriscience fair contest as well as keep tabs on the other 4 students.

I learned so much in the short few days their about attending convention with students.

Students Kissing the bricks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway

1. Letting students pick the attractions in the area they want to attend: This adds variability to the trip and changes it each year for the advisor that attends. Letting students research the area and pick makes the trip interesting for them. 
2. Allow for down time. Students are constantly going during convention and can become overwhelmed with everything. Giving them some down time in the day to go back to the hotel before dinner isn't the worst thing in the world to help them and myself out! 
3. Be flexible: Sometimes things can change at the drop of the hat. Sometimes things do not go according to plan and that is perfectly okay. Just role with the punches.
4. Make connections with other professionals. One of the best thing I got out of this convention (especially as a student teacher) is being able to talk to my mentor team, other teachers at banquet and my cooperating teacher. Having so many different conversations allowed me to grow as an educator and see several view points on topics.

Attending the National FFA Convention this year was different than any other year I have attended. I saw so much of Indy and was able to help students along the way. 

One last question I have is: 

How do you determine how often you go to convention if you do not have students competing?

What About Everyone Else?:Attending National FFA Convention

This week I was able to attend the National FFA Convention in Indianapolis, Indiana. I attended with 7 students from Conrad Weiser Area High School and 2 advisors from the middle and high school. 

While at the convention I was able to talk to several teachers from around the United States and discuss how do we prepare students not attending the convention for success in the classroom while I am away.

Conrad Weiser Students walking in Indy

Here are some questions I discussed throughout the convention:

To my future students:

What were some things you wanted your peers to know about the convention?

To my cooperating teacher, Mr.Serfass:

How do you have students share their knowledge coming back from convention? 

• Students talk. They talk about experiences and it won't ever come out as "this is what I learned" but, through communicating they will share their take aways from convention. Students also share on social media and even if it isn't a clear message they allow students to see a sliver of the convention.

For one of your current virtual mentors,Annette Weeks:

What are your students doing back at school?

• They are doing a project over several days. She suggested leaving a plan for the whole few days and then chunk it into sections for each day. Get to know a sub in the building or a retired teacher so, someone can cover your class and be comfortable in the labs. 

Overall the experience of taking students to convention with Conrad Weiser taught me a ton about what it means to travel with students. The first time I take students anywhere it will not go 100% as planned but, now I have an idea of what to do thanks to this experience.