This week in AEE 412 lab we were tasked with creating a lesson that highlighted a formative assessment. After spending time this summer talking with my Cooperating Teacher, Kelly Bier, I was excited to try out a tool that she uses often: Nearpod.  I was able to use a Google Slides presentation I had prepared for my What is Companion Animal Science? for this nearpod. There was a bit of learning that needed to be done in order for this to be successful. It took me a few tries, but I eventually got my google account and nearpod account synced up and ready to go! I made sure I was meeting the ask this week in lab, and confirmed that my lesson included a formative assessment. According to Carnegie Mellon University this is a way to monitor student learning and identify their strengths and weaknesses in a low stakes way.  This week's lab was a breath of fresh air compared to last weeks! Things went smoothly and I was happy to find success. After reflecting about this week's la...

 This week in AEE412 Lab, we each spent time presenting an interest approach we thought was creative for one of our lessons. The interest approach I presented was from my Compression and Carburetion Unit of my Small Gas Engines Class.  My lesson is titled What is Compression and Why is it Important?  and my interest approach was a quick review of the 4 strokes of a small gas engine. To say this lab had a learning curve is an understatement. After reflecting on Wednesday's lab, I can clearly see that my interest approach was really explaining "the why" before I began the activity which should be included in the content portion of my lesson. Because I formed the activity to be so content based and explained what was happening during each stroke as we walked through the "cylinder space" (taped boxes on the carpet), this was more of a class activity instead of an interest approach.  For reference, I now know that an interest approach needs to meet the needs, wants, ...

 This week for 412 Lab, my cohort members and I traveled over to the Palmer Museum of Art and experienced what it would be like to take students on a place-based field trip. We began the class by coming up with objectives for our lab and then started our museum tour experience. Baylor and I came up with the objective of understanding and building knowledge of the behind the scenes and best practices of taking students on field trips.  The first piece of art that we visited was Still Life with Grapes by Severin Roesen. We were all very impressed that one of our guides, Rachel, was able to use a lecture-based, informational teaching approach that tied in the agriculture discipline. One fun fact that she tied into the piece was that there are 14,000 acres devoted to vineyards in Pennsylvania, leading us to rank fifth nationally in wine production.  Next we got to see a more discussion based teaching style for the next piece of art, titled Harlem Rose . As we walked up, our ...

 Over the last four weeks, #psuaged23 has been tasked with writing, peer reviewing, and editing our first unit plan for student teaching. I chose my public speaking unit for my leadership class because I was excited to get started with a class I am least experienced in: Leadership. In high school, my ag program did not offer a leadership class, so this was a class I was very excited to experience as a student teacher to learn what this class can include and get to better know the Shippensburg officer team.  As I began writing my leadership public speaking unit I found it hard to decide what the lesson title and essential question should be each day. As I looked through resources, I had a sort of "Ah Ha" moment and thought back to our summer bootcamp. I found it easier to decide on essential questions when I began to use the backward design/backward planning/backward mapping strategy and coming up with daily objectives and my unit assessment first. To prepare for the local Lea...

This week in AEE 412 Lab we were tasked with teaching a snapshot of what we thought a first day lesson should look like. In the last few weeks, as the 2022-2023 school year begins, many teachers have taught lessons to their new students that develop their classroom expectations.  My First Day lesson snapshot was an activity with students, helping them to develop communication skills and learn more about each other. We created blobs and lines based on alphabetical order of first and last names, birthdays, and other fun variations. Students were to get into groups or line up in order with little or no speaking.  Something I found very important in this lesson was explaining the "why" behind the activity. Students often go through class with thoughts like "I don't understand why we are doing this" or "this has no tie in to this subject". To prevent this, I told my cohort members, who were serving as my students, that standing up and introducing themselves...