Well my final day of student teaching was filled with many heartfelt goodbye and appreciation for my students as I reflected on the last 15 weeks at Oley Valley. My student teaching experience was truly great and I am going to miss all of the amazing students and people I met along the way. I have learned so much from Mr. Deysher, Mrs. Rice and all of the students about how to manage and run a successful FFA program and I am so grateful they included me in all of their competitions and events throughout the past few months. I felt at home at Oley Valley, as all of the students were so welcoming and fun to teach! Everyone told me in January that my student teaching experience was going to go by very fast because of how busy I will be and I can not express how true that turned out to be. I’m happy that through all of the craziness I was still able to take a few moments to take it all in and enjoy the experience.
All throughout the week my students were reminded that this was my last few days and I got asked a bunch of times what my favorite class was. I told all of them that I don’t have a favorite, I enjoyed each one and they all said that I sound like a true teacher haha. But in all honesty, my classes were filled with great students who were engaged in my lessons and helped the classes go more smoothly. Most of the students were willing to accept me as their new teacher for a few weeks and I am really happy that they were so receptive and welcoming to me. During the Lynx period on Friday, students came down to surprise me with an ice cream cake to celebrate my last day. I am so sad to be saying bye to them but I know they will continue to do great things for the program and with their futures.
I taught a condensed unit on Food Microbiology in the Food Science and Technology class this week. I had the opportunity to teach a Protein unit in this class in February so the students were excited for me to teach them during my last week. Microbiology is a topic that I am more confident in when compared to some other agricultural topics, so I too was excited to teach and learn about it. We did a lab called growing cultures, where students used tape to take samples from various surfaces in the Food Science lab. They were super into this and really curious to see what surfaces would have bacteria living on them. We made a few extra agar plates, so the students got the opportunity to swab surfaces of their choice just to see if we could grow cultures. Turns out we had a lot of bacterial growth on most of our plates. This taught them the importance of cleanliness and sanitation during the food making process so that they can ensure no contamination or food borne illnesses can occur. During this unit, we also analyzed various scenarios to determine if they are food safety or quality concerns, similar to the objective in the Food Science CDE. 4 of my students in this class will be taking the CDE on Monday, so it was fun to help them get prepared in and outside of the classroom.
During this last week, I was also making sure I completed everything on my student teaching checklist with the help of Mrs. Rice. I attended a baseball game and also updated her bulletin board to showcase some of the awesome events and competitions that the FFA students get to take part in. I am happy I took a lot of pictures these past few months during student teaching because while printing some out for the bulletin board, I was able to look back at a few of the lessons I taught and the students I got to interact with. I also attended my last Envirothon practice where students had a mini cram session before the competition next Friday. These were a lot of fun to participate in and I wish my students luck next week in all the various competitions that will be taking place!
I had the chance to sit down with Mrs. Rice on Thursday to review my performance and final evaluation of my student teaching experience. We both agreed that I have learned so much over the past few months whether it was from teaching the content or just observing and acting as a student as well. The two main items that I need to continue to work on throughout my career are my content knowledge and confidence. Not coming from an Ag background or attending an FFA program during high school has always made me feel the need to catch up with my content knowledge. I am so happy that I was able to teach a wide variety of content here at Oley because I have learned so much from it. I believe that the more content knowledge I gain the more confidence I will have in the classroom. The Ag Environmental Science classes were my strongest ones content wise, and that definitely impacted my confidence and ability to manage the class in a positive manner. She expressed that my relationships with students and my classroom environment is always positive and welcoming and that impacts the student learning and engagement. I have learned a lot about teaching from watching Mrs. Rice and Mr. Deysher and I am so grateful to have had them mentor and guide me in the right direction with my teaching career.
I would just like to thank everyone who has helped me reach the end of my student teaching experience. First I would like to thank all of the Penn State advisors and professors who have continually pushed us as a cohort to put our best selves out there for our students. Next, I would like to thank my cohort for always being supportive and I am so grateful to have gone on this journey with you all. I would also like to thank Mr. Deysher for showing me what it is like to have a strong passion for your program and students and always answering my many questions. To Mrs. Rice for being an example of a compassionate teacher who shows students their potential in the world of Agriculture. Also for teaching me the ins and outs of being an Ag teacher through always including me in meetings and activity planning for the program. I would also like to thank all of my students for not only having the patience to learn from a new teacher but for always making me feel included in the program. I can only wish to have students like them one day in my future program and I am really grateful to have met them. Lastly, I would like to thank my family for always supporting me wherever life takes me. My college career was definitely a journey and they have always been there to encourage me along the way. I can’t believe I will be graduating soon and closing the chapter of my life that is Penn State. It hasn’t hit me yet but I am filled with bittersweet emotions as I write this blog post. Thank you for keeping up with my Agricultural Education journey as I hope it will continue in the future!
Lauren :)
Aka Ms. McHenry
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