Life Knowledge Lab

For the life knowledge lab, we had to go to our cooperating school and teach a life knowledge lesson from National FFA.  I always have a hard time selecting life knowledge lessons because there are so many and it seems i can never find the perfect one.  After looking for awhile though, i found on on mutual interests and selected that one because i thought it would be a valuable lesson from it.  At James Buchanan, there are a few different close knit groups of students.  The groups get along when need be, but don't go out of there way to be over friendly.  I thought it would be a good lesson to help them see how they can help each other better and have more interaction.  I was going to go down on Tuesday, December the 10th to teach, but after leaving at 5:30am, I got a text at 6am from Mr. Hoffeditz saying that school was canceled due to snow which was nice because then I was able go to AEE 413 with Dr. Ewing.  He wanted me to come down the next day, so i went on the 11th but had to miss a mandatory work day in lab where everyone got to work on whatever projects they wanted.  For some unknown stupid reason, I have to make that lab time up by doing a video because i had to miss the lab for a requirement for the very same class.  Its not like I was just skipping to go hunting, which I much would have rather done, or for even another class.  I didn't even make it back in time for the last class of AEE 350.  Anyway, I ended up going down to James Buchanan on Wednesday and taught my lesson to the last two classes of the day.  It went fairly well, but I ran out of time in each class and had to cut stuff out to wrap up on time.  I also got a good dose of classroom management as well because the students were really hyper all day and Mr. Hoffeditz had a hard time with them.  He thought it may have been because of getting their fruit delivery on Monday and the students having off due to the snow on Tuesday.  All in all, it was a good day at JB with the students.

Creativity Lab - To the dollar store we go!

The creativity lab was a different lab than all the rest of the semester but it was fun and exciting.  We weren't given a whole lot of details  except for the tidbit that we were going to be going somewhere off of campus.  We got to Ferguson and were all eager and excited to find out what was in store for the lab.  We had to wait a few minutes but then our limo pulled into the parking lot.  Our limo to take us to the dollar store was the classy and spectacular Ewing family mini van, with Mrs. Rice being the chauffeur!  We were able to pick out different items that equaled up to five dollars.  The favorite item I got was candles that i want to use for my welding unit to weld ice cubes together.  The second item I got was a big pack of little foam farm animals that can use for all sorts of little fun activites or ways to split the students into groups for activities so i can have a little creativity.  The most creative item that that anyone got from our lab section was when Jessie got tortillas to have her students practicing ear notching on.  It was a good ending to lab by having fun and showing us how to be creative on a low budget.  All of the stuff we got will help us with interest approaches as we student teach in the spring.

Micro Teaching at Central Mountain with Mr. Bohnert

I completed my micro teaching unit at Central Mt. High School with Mr. Bohnert.  The class i taught was a capstone course of Ag mechanization for seniors.  There were only seven kids in the class for the first and last day and eight on the second day because the eighth student did a work co-op.  Because it was a small class and they were seniors, they weren't all that eager to learn which made it kind off hard for me as the teacher.  The unit i taught was a short three day unit on irrigation.  It was a good unit to teach because the students didn't no know a whole lot about irrigation at all.  I taught a lot with PowerPoint which is what the teacher had recommended.  I also had a few fun activities for the students to do as well but only got to one of them.  I was amazed at how the time while teaching flew by so fast each period.  Time management is one thing that i have to work on to be a better and more effective teacher for my students.  I also learned that you have to be prepared and comfortable when using technology in a different environment.  I wanted to show a YouTube video but the schools web server doesn't allow it.  It all worked out well because still had plenty of information that i didn't get to the first day.  It was a great opportunity to micro teach because it helped me get my feet wet and prepare me for what student teaching will be like and what i need to do to be a better and more effective teacher.

IBI Lab

IBI!  IBI is inquiry based instruction, which is a way teachers can teach students.  If done properly, it can be a highly effective and efficient way to teach.  It is when you set the lesson up where the students have to come up with the questions and think critically about the subject to understand it and that in turn allows them to learn.  I was lost and confused for the longest time about it. We went and saw Mr. Clark use it in his classroom and then he came and shared about it to our class.  We even got to do an activity  using it which was really fun because it was hands on and allowed us to learn about batteries.  If a long question and answer section of do's and don'ts on using it to teach, I started seeing some clarity on it.  I will admit, I am nowhere close to being a master at it but I feel at least fairly confident in using it to teach.  The main way that I and the rest of the cohort know how to introduce to lesson though it through a reading article about the lesson subject.  That is something we should work on in variability.  I did my lab on the solubility of fertilizers.  I brought in different types of fertilizers for the student to mix in water to see if they were soluble.  Some were, and some were not soluble when stirred with water. It allowed the students to carry out the scientific method on their own and see what was more soluble.  It went fairly well, but there could be a lot of changes made in order to refine it so its better for students to learn.  It will take a lot of trial and error practice, but if we keep working at it and trying it, we will get there!

Lab 4 - Problem solving lab

This weeks lab for me was the problem solving lab and it went ok I guess although I didn't think I did well.  I started out teaching my lesson on welding by asking the students a little bit about welding to see what they already knew.  I had a situation to be improved as my problem solving approach so I read a prompt about a boy named Timmy and how he was trying to weld a new bumper that he got at a junk yard onto his truck.  He was trying to get the welder to work but it just wouldn't strike an arc so he could well.  He became frustrated and confused so as a class we helped him solve his problem.  All of this was going ok so far. The class got into groups of two and brain stormed so ideas as to what may be Timmy's problem and jotted them down on a sheet of paper.  I had one student come up and write down the possible problems that the rest of the class shared so we could all see and remember what they were.  Then all of a sudden at this point, my mind went blank and I couldn't remember what to do! Oh no!  We wrapped this up and then went over what we learned yesterday, today, and what we will tomorrow and then class was dismissed.

I think the problem solving approach is a great idea and very useful, it just requires that you be on top of your game as well as an expert in the field that you are teaching.  I feel that by not being an expert with welding or the problem solving approach, that may be some of why I feel the lesson didnt go that great.  I wish I would have better developed the ending piece so I wouldn't have forgotten when my mind went blank and I started freaking out inside my head so I could have wrapped class up much better.  I guess that is just how it goes, just got to keep working at it to get better each time.

Lab 3 - Demonstration

So for this lab we had to do a demonstration.  I thought it was going to be a fun lab as I planned and prepped for it but ended up not so much being the case.  I did my demonstration on learning how to make beads of weld by using crackers and easy cheese from a can.  I thought it was a wonderful idea for a few reasons. The first being Dr. Ewing suggested it to me and the second because it allowed you to practice but gave you food to eat in the end so nothing was wasted besides the trap chain link I had to cut up for my interest approach.  What is more fun than learning how to weld while getting to eat snacks? Nothing that I can think of!  I feel I did fairly well on my demonstration although I did forget a few things which is kind of expected since we are all still learning and not experts yet.  My grade however apparently revealed otherwise since it was awful.  My lesson plan was also much better and more organized since I used the template everyone is familiar with.  My times for the instructions even added up to the time length of the class although it was noted other wise on the plan.  I made it really easy to follow the teacher says, teacher does; teacher does, student does; and student says in my demonstration which was good because that is what our instructions were.  Either way, I had a lot of fun doing this demonstration that taught students how to weld as well as gave them cheese and crackers for a snack.

Reading Reflection 1

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