Let's Jump Into Week 3!

    I can't believe we are already approaching week 3 of the Fall semester, time just seems to be flying by! This past week, we focused on the acronym BECOV and had many opportunities during class to express the different characteristics of an effective teacher. The readings supplied for week 3 offer a richer insight into the acronym and how planning for instruction is key for creating a successful learning environment. 

B: Business like Behavior

E: Enthusiasm

C: Clarity

O: Opportunity to Learn 

V: Variability

The 5 Characteristics of
an Effective Teacher

    After completing the week 3 readings, I'm a lot more confident about instructional planning and how to write clear objective goals that will help me use better methods to asses student knowledge. One key takeaway from the Methods of Teaching Agriculture reading, is that objectives or desired learning outcomes fall into three domains for learning: cognitive, psychomotor, and affective. Knowing these different methods of teaching objectives will help me write better unit plans that keep my end goal in mind. Being able to portray information to students through different modes, differentiates the material so that each and every student can learn in their own way. 

    Another relevant connection to my student teaching internship, is to always have a daily plan on hand. This was a good piece of advice I learned from the readings because it will help me stay on track for the day, so that I can maintain business like behavior. A daily plans includes routine notes such as: announcements, reminders, assignments, and different assessment materials. The third connection between the readings and my student teaching experience is Fink's Taxonomy of Significant Learning. In AEE 412, my classmates and I discussed the idea of Significant Learning and how we can implement different instructional goals into our future classrooms. "If there is no change, there is no learning". In order for learning to occur in the classroom, I have to give my students opportunities to expand out of their comfort zones to experience something new and challenging. 

Diagram of Fink's
Significant Learning

    One connection I can make from this week's material to other #TeachAg courses, is the opportunity to learn by giving students the ability to show what they know. Dr. Ewing taught us the importance of giving students hands-on, real life experiences this past week. For example, we were tasked with making a lesson plan for an activity using a leveler. In our lesson plan, my classmates and I made sure we included the important aspect of having students show what they know by actually planning out and constructing a chicken coop, using a leveler. Another connection that can be made between another AEE course, is the idea of needing to repeat a task multiple times so that students can fully engage and learn it better. In AEE 350, we worked on welding again this week and I was more comfortable with the different tools since we practiced with them last spring. 

    The triangulated connection I found related to week 3's material is about the daily plan that I had mentioned earlier. After reading about how important it is to be prepared as a teacher and to always have a resource to fall back on, I googled some daily templates to utilize in the future. I attached a resource that I think will be helpful to us as we begin to make our unit/lesson plans!

Resource: https://www.dropbox.com/s/6vmdei2inblvg3o/TEACHER-WEEKLY-PLANNER-A4.pdf?dl=0

Citation: Newcomb, L.H., McCracken, J.D., Warmbrod, J.R., & Whittington, M.S. (2004). Methods of Teaching Agriculture. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. 

Thank you for joining me as I continue my journey towards student teaching!