Week 10:Calming the Curiosity

When students walk into my classroom I want them to know a few things:

1. I hear their thoughts and concerns 
2. I value their opinion
3. I want them to think outside the box. The sky is the limit.

This week the biggest concern in my students minds was focused around the Coronavirus. That was the first question I was asked at the start of every class, "Do you think we will close?" and "What is going on with the virus?" were two main questions I would get. 

This week I learned really fast how to address their concerns, value their input but, curve their curiosity.

What did I teach?

Intro to Ag playing Journey 2050

Introduction to Agriculture: This week I used Journey 2050, an online farming simulator, to teach about agronomy, international agriculture and sustainability. We would start class by discussing a topic such as plant nutrients. Then we would play the level on the simulator that coordinated with the topic (there was 5 levels) and then we compared the countries the simulator highlighted. The simulator allowed them to farm in Kenya, India and Canada. After discussing the countries we would connect it back to their lives in Berks County, PA.

Current Topics in Agriculture: This week I wrapped up the vet science unit by doing fecal exams, parasite ID, suturing and horse evaluation. The class did a review using Kahoot! and Gimkit to study for their exam that was Friday. I had the exam set up identical to the vet science contest, minus the team event.

Parliamentary Procedure CDE: Over the past few weeks I have been coaching a Parliamentary Procedure CDE team. This week we deep dived into motions and started doing mock meetings.

Viewing a fecal exam for parasites

What did I learn?

What I learned this week was not direct take aways from the lessons I taught. The best practices I learned this week was from other things happening in the world that affected my classroom.

1. Be honest: I found that instead of not answering questions it was better to be honest with the information I had. Rumors were flying around the building and it eased their minds that I was reading emails directly from administration (with Mr.Serfass present for questions). This was the students knew what to expect and were never blind sided.
2. Empathy: I always knew teachers needed to be empathetic but, this was a good situation to exercise this. Instead of shutting down conversations I let them ask questions and realized that they have never lived through something like this (neither have I) but, I am an adult that they can trust and I should be understanding of their fears and emotions on the situation. I shared with my class that they are not alone as I fear for my parents who have poor immune systems back home. This allowed them to realize it is okay to be worried.
3. Not all the lessons I will teach will relate to agriculture: I have always heard that as a teacher you teach other skills that are not necessarily academic. This week was one of those weeks. As rumors progressed it was a great time to discuss reliable sources and social media etiquette. We talked about not sharing screenshots of text messages that we are unsure are true on social media, how to get the most up to date information and what was going on when Pa called a "state of emergency." Overall, the conversations were short but, helped teach the students about what was going on in their lives and our world. 

Goals for next week:

Continuous versus non continuous sutures

 

1. Clarity: I foresee us not having in person classes next week and need to provide clear instructions for online learning to occur. I have laid out lessons that I can do in person or online already and look forwards to implementing either.