Effective evaluation of learning

Evaluating student success is a vital part of a teacher's job. Without evaluation, how would they know where their students are in the classroom? There are many types of evaluations that can be useful in an agricultural classroom and laboratory setting. Here are some snapshots of what I learned from my readings this week and how I plan to implement them.

• Written exam: 
• This is a test that uses multiple choice questions, short answer, true or false, and essay questions. There are advantages to these types of questions. Multiple choice and true or false questions require students to recall information, but it is easy for students to guess on and create mistakes. Open ended questions require students to know the material well, but it makes grading harder for the teachers because answers can vary greatly. A written exam will work well in the Ag Business Management course I am student teaching next semester. I don't look forward to this type of examination because students just memorize the information instead of learn it. 
• Performance Assessments:

• This will be great to use in a shop setting in any class where students are completing hands-on labs. Students are evaluated based off of a rubric. This evaluation has its ups and downs as well. Of course students get to show of their skills, a couple students may be struggling in this area and are afraid of failing in front of the class. I can cause a lot of frustration to the student who is behind. The way I plan to incorporate this in my classroom is through students working in groups, except for welding class. I can pair the students who feel like they struggle with the topic to a student that feels comfortable with the topic. 
• Portfolio Assessments:
• Students use all their projects from throughout the course to compile a portfolio that can be used as a final assessment at the end of a course. This shows where the student has grasped or struggled with the topic. I want to implement this in the Ag business management course through the students' projects. Each unit has at least one project and the student will chose 3 of their best for the portfolio. 

Evaluation of students learning lets the teacher know where the student falls in the classroom. It can show what needs more explanation and what can be moved quickly through. It will be fun getting to experiment with the different types of learning assessments to figure out which ones work best and how to properly implement them in the classroom.

Problem Solving Approach

I have been practicing my teaching techniques for almost seven weeks now! Each week is a new adventure and a new technique to learn. This week I created a problem solving lesson to fit into my greenhouse management unit in the Ag business management course. I was really excited about this lesson because it was an idea I had in mind since the beginning of the year. As a high school student I hated learning skills like this by listening to a lecture. I always wanted to be able to apply them in the classroom. Here are some snapshots from my lesson!

• Once again, I am having troubles with filler words, rocking back and forth, and playing with the lesson plan in my hand. I am a very fidgety person, so these habits are hard to break. I can practice effective questioning before the lesson to eliminate the crutch of a lesson plan, which will eliminate my fidgeting hands and filler words. 

• I did a really good job of introducing the topic through personal experiences. To start, I could have shared on of my experiences to warm students up to the idea of sharing. I had to prob some students to get answers. I should practice with the effective questioning because that could have been a problem as well. Having effective questions will allow students to think deeper. 

• Time for absorbing. I gave the students about a minute to read the scenario to themselves. Instead of telling the students to stand up when they are done, I just asked if everyone was ready. I realized at the end of the last scenario that students didn't get enough time to read through the full scenario.

In the end, I have made tremendous improvements in teaching over these seven weeks. Problem solving can be a boring lesson in the classroom if it isn't confronted with enthusiasm. The students loved how I was excited and started the class with a funny video on customer service fails. They also enjoyed the hands on approach to solving a customer service scenario. Instead of acting out the scene I could have had it typed up and every student would have to work through the situation on their own, but this experience got them thinking on their toes. It was by far one of the best lessons to teach this semester, so far. 

Always remember.........

Fall Leadership Conference Reflection

I had an eye opening experience being a facilitator this year at FLC. This is an FFA conference for officer training and first year members. Olivia and I had the Vice President workshop. Here is some key events that I learned from.

• Not every student will be full engaged. It took us about half of the workshop to get all the students engaged. Maybe we weren't hitting their modality of learning, it was just too early in the morning for them to be mentally awake, or the student simply didn't want to be there. To address this, Olivia would stand next to the person with their phone out. I used the technique of clapping when I couldn't get their attention for the next objective, activity, or direction. One way that I will try to engage students more is to give them a classroom task or try to teach to their modality.

• We had to change minor details of our lesson plan. Olivia had the brilliant idea of playing Wheel of Fortune to guess the objectives as a transition. About half way through, most students had lost interest in the game. We decided to switch up our teaching method and use transitioning questions instead. I have realized that this type of thing may happen in the classroom as well. It takes thinking on your feet to change up a situation when you see your plan is starting to fall apart. 

• Time was our biggest enemy! We thought we had timing planned out well for our objectives. When they were put into practice, it only ended up taking less time than we thought. We slowed down the workshop and allowed students more time to think out a Program of Activities. Towards the end we had to cut out one of our leadership activities because we were having so much fun with the other two. Timing will be my enemy when it comes to teaching in a classroom. 

All in all, the experience of writing a long lesson plan and facilitating it to actual FFA members. I learned that planning is super important, but plans are meant to be changed and not set in stone.