Administrator Interview

Its that time of year when the anxiety and rush to find a job begins! (Except... I still have until 2017 before I can begin applying, but its never too early to start!) I was lucky enough to complete a mock interview with both principals at Mohawk High School. I realized I need to make TONS of improvements when answering questions. I didn't just get practice with interviews, I also received some crucial information from an administrators side of interviews. Here are some of the pointers I received.

• Administrators like to see candidates align their professional portfolios along with the 4 domains of teacher effectiveness. This shows that the candidate is prepared to follow along with the Pennsylvania SAS website and can portray all 4 domains. 

• Create a tri-fold brochure for everyone of the interviewers. There isn't enough binders to create to go around. They are able to glance through your brochure that hits on the important parts of your binder.

• When they ask if you have any questions, always ask questions. I asked a question about the school becoming a one-to-one school with technology. They said to turn the question into something useful. With a question like that I could have a conversation about using that technology in my agricultural classroom. 

As you can see, I really learned a lot from this interview. These tips have been very helpful in trying to prepare for a future career. 

And so the journey ends here... (Week 15)

Over the past four months I have spent my time at Mohawk High School as their student teacher. I started out as a shy teacher. I was afraid of EVERYTHING going wrong! But... I have grown more in these past four months than I could have imagined. Not only did I become a better educator, but I learned about who I am as that educator. I figured out that I live by the phrase "learning by doing." Students pick up the most when learning from real-world experiences. I have had so many projects fail in the classroom that I learned from those failures and grew as a teacher. My students picked up on this behavior and reflected after lessons with me on why something failed and how to make it better.

At Mohawk, I taught a total of 5 classes. These consisted of Advanced Single Cylinder Engines, Welding, Ag Business Management, Building Masonry, and Electricity. YES! This is a wide variety of classes. Each class was unique and taught me something new each day. When I first began, I didn't feel I knew enough content or had the best lessons to engage the students because this school is ag mechanics based. (I am more of a horticultural person). I learned all kinds of content as well as classroom management within the shop setting.

Along with the classes, I got to serve as an FFA advisor and role model for the students involved in the program. I had the opportunity to attend conferences, conventions, and conduct SAE visits. I pretty much got a glimps of what it is like to be an agricultural teacher.

Today, as I was saying my final remarks as a student teacher, I realized that I never want to leave. I am going to miss this chapter of my life. Those students will always be my first students. My chapter at Penn State University and Mohawk is slowly coming to a close and my chapter with the United States Marine Corps begins to write itself. Semper Fidelis!

SAE Visit #2

My second SAE visit was with a student in my Ag Business Management class. She is a senior at Mohawk and has kept amazing records on her projects thus far. She has records on her market hog, market steers, and breeding ewe. This students has grown her project from simply raising and showing market animals to raising and breeding animals to raise for the fair.

Mr. Wallace and I had visited her farm where the livestock is located. This consisted of a multiple acre farm with about 3 barns. It was a nice set up for raising cattle. It is her first year raising a market hog, but she is accommodating it well.

I prepared for this visit by reviewing her record books. I made sure her records were up to date, she had good descriptions, and to get to know her projects better. She is mainly holding projects in the area of entrepreneurship. This students has kept up amazing records, very clean and healthy environment for the livestock, and has utilized her skills to select strong, healthy animals. She has earned a high evaluation on her projects based on the criteria of record keeping and the progress of her projects. I would recommend that she improves her planning sections. I feel that she could have a deeper learning goal coming from each one.

My students have been making me proud with their SAE projects. This last visit has brought back my memories in the program. I cannot wait to hear about how her projects finish out during the fair!

Making my way down South... (ST visit)

Today, I went to West Perry High School located in Elliotsburg, PA. I had the pleasure of observing Mr. Holt for the day! This day was very different for me. I am used to seeing students work in the shop almost all day. Today, the students were in classroom desks for majority of the classes. Here is a glimps in my day!

• Small Animal Science Class - This was the first class of the day. One of his students had brought in a chicken ready for dissection! Mr. Holt took this opportunity and ran with it. He used it for students to learn the parts of a digestive system from hands on learning. It was a really cool activity that (some) students loved! 
• Large Animal Science Class - In this class, students were learning about large animal gestation periods. Today's topic in particular was ruminants. This was a typical lesson with a slide show and discussion at the end of class. The discussion changed the environment up a bit for him to continue getting the students attention. 
• Wildlife Class - In this class, students learned about identifying birds and bird calls. The students really got into this lesson. Mr. Holt gave the students enough time in between each bird to try and recognize the call. This was the best class of the day for him. His personality shined through while teaching this class. 

I also got to talk with Mr. Hines for a bit. They have a very strong program with SAE and FFA involvement. I got to ask a couple questions about implementing SAE in the classroom and the best way to get students started. I learned to have students complete one project as a class together. This way there is less confusion and more learning! 

This visit had a lot of benefits. I got to see how a fellow student teacher has grown in the classroom and tour another program in our lovely state of Pennsylvania! 

PS. Matt, you are doing an awesome job! Only 4 more instructional days to go. Keep up the awesome work. 

Flowers, Flowers Everywhere! (Week 14)

This week was pretty spectacular! I had been waiting for this week all semester long. In my Ag Business Management class, we are doing a unit on floral design. To incorporate business, I held the first flower sale that Mohawk has ever had. Last week, I taught the students how to make a centerpiece. They all looked at me like with a blank stare. Now that the students know what to do, they just go! We sold and made a total of 22 pre-ordered arrangements. This whole unit was a blast to teach, but there are a lot of things I would do differently.

1. Open it up to all high school faculty and staff. The students wanted to sell to their families instead. I thought, "Why not?" We only received about 17-18 orders from the students. The week the orders were due, I opened it up to faculty and staff because I wanted to try and sell at least 20. We got all the orders in a couple days later than expected, but it still worked out in the end. I needed to get the order forms out earlier and to the right people. The students didn't push the sale, which is why we didn't get as many orders as expected. 
2. Have students create a mock-up arrangement to use for the flyer. This would have given people a clearer picture of what the arrangement would look like. This could have helped with the sales a lot more. 
3. Teach students about pricing before the centerpiece sale. I tried to do this... but I went over it really quickly. The students got really confused. I needed to take one to two days to go through with students how to price a flower arrangement. Students would be less confused to what was going on. 

Although there were some downfalls during this sale, students thought it was the best part of class. They see that all the work they did before the sale led up to what was going on. The picture became clear to them. If I am to do this again as a teacher, I would definitely make these changes for a smoother sale. 

Until next week, 

Ms. Yoest

SAE Visit #1 (Conducted Jan. 29, 2016)

My first SAE visit of the year was conducted during school. I wanted to work with a student to start up a project. He was a senior and did not see the value within these projects and felt the need to rebel against it. He proclaimed he had no job after school or took little responsibility/ownership at home. I took on the challenge to help this student see the importance of a project. I started him off with an exploratory project. I tried to base it off of what he could do when he graduates.

During one of our in-service days, we visited the Western Pennsylvania Laborers Union and learned about Future Road Builders. Future Road Builders is a virtual pre-apprenticeship where students can gain hours to prepare them for an apprenticeship in highway construction. I had the idea of making this into an exploratory SAE. He participated in the virtual pre-apprenticeship and kept records on what he accomplished and learned along the way. It was a very simple project, but enough for him to see the value in record keeping.

I will admit this project is not the best one out there. It was a great start for this student though. He saw the value in both Future Road Builders and keeping records in Agricultural Experience Tracker. I would rate this project, based on the criteria, with a rating of 4 (1 meaning not valuable, 5 meaning valuable).

I would check through his records after each SAE day we had in class. I recommended that he put more effort into the planning section. He needed to set goals for him to complete during the project. He also needed to improve his entries.

Students at Mohawk have the opportunity to take a ½ credit course for SAE. These students do not meet up for class, but have to complete their records through AET (Agricultural Experience Tracker). They are graded on completing entries in their journal and keeping their records up to date. 

Integrating Career Development Events

This past Tuesday was one of our last online cohort meetings for #psuaged16! Each time there is a meeting, special guests are brought in to present about topics we want to strengthen in. This week's topic was integrating Career Development Events (CDEs) in the classroom. FFA is an intra-curricular part of agricultural education. I had the opportunity to listen to Mr. Mike Clark and Ms. Krista Pontius and interview a a Pennsylvania ag teacher about CDEs. Here is what I learned!

• Almost all students love to compete in CDEs. Students want to compete in these contests. They create connections between the classroom and CDEs. They take what they learned and apply it to the contest. They can also take what they learned from a CDE and in the classroom and connect it with their Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE). FFA, SAE, and classroom instruction all fall under the three-circle model to create a uniform agricultural program. 

• During the interview, I learned more about coaching students for CDEs. I interviewed Jodie Hoover from Fort Cherry High School. She incorporates some CDEs into her classroom. She believes that all students can benefit from this integration and not just the active members. Jodie also uses time after school to work with students who want to compete in CDEs. Her resources are National FFA, Quizlet, and the PA FFA website just to name a few. Her advice to a beginning teacher is to try and attend as many CDEs as you can. Each one offers a different opportunity. The more you know about a CDE, the more help you can give a student to prepare. 

This online cohort meeting helped me have a better understanding of preparing students for CDEs through the classroom. I made connections back to my previous classes of AEE 311, 412, and my current class of 495. We hit a lot on CDEs in AEE 311. I also created a CDE Success Plan that I utilize for my student teaching. In 412, we discussed integrating CDEs into lessons. In my internship, I am always working with students to prepare them for CDEs. Everything I learned is coming round for me during this internship. So far, I have helped students in Extemporaneous public speaking, Small Gas Engines CDE, and Floriculture CDE. I have one student continuing on to Regionals for Extemporaneous and others wanting to attend State Days for Floriculture. 

Community Based Unit of Instruction

During my 15 week internship I completed a Community Based Unit of Instruction in my Advanced Single Cylinder Engines class. I spent the entire time of teaching this course building up to this unit called Maintenance and Repair.  This unit consisted of students completing maintenance and repairs on community members' engines. The have to identify the problem (if there is one) and repair it to working order. It took weeks of preparation, so here is a basic timeline of what happened.

• Fall semester: The unit was created and revised to meet the school's needs. 
• January-March: Students learned about troubleshooting ignition systems, compression, and fuel systems. 
• Early March: The flyer was created, edited, and sent out to school faculty, staff, and community members. Students created and edited a brochure on fall/winter maintenance. 
• Late march-April: Students begin receiving engines from the community. They break off into teams to complete the work. When they finish with an engine, they are to complete an engine analysis sheet. One copy will stay with Mohawk, and another will be sent with the customer. The students would meet up with the customers to converse about the engine. Students would inform the community about their brochure and how to prevent further damage to their engine. 

So.. that gave a simple timeline of preparation for the project and the project itself. There are some other small details along the way. This project needed no funding. The owner of the engine was responsible for the cost of parts, but were not charged for labor. The students were completing the project for the experience of working in a shop, troubleshooting, and informing the public. 

What would I have done differently?

As I reflect back onto this experience, I would have tweaked a couple items. First, I would change some of the lessons used to lead up to the project. I tried a lot of hands-on troubleshooting lessons, but I feel like the students could have used more lessons on theory. Secondly, I would have changed the way students prepared the brochure. They did a great job on it, but I need to change the way I facilitate that portion. Students didn't understand how to create a brochure. Lastly, I would have stressed the importance early on of completing engines in a timely manner. Some groups drug their work out, while others worked just fine. 

Overall, this service learning project went much better than I could have expected. Most of my issues with this were on the facilitation end of things. With due time, these kinks will be worked out and the project would run flawlessly. My students enjoyed the hands-on experience, and the community enjoys supporting the agricultural classes.

Western Region PAAE Meeting

I have been a student member of Pennsylvania Association of Agricultural Educators for almost a year. Through this organization, I have attended 3 meetings. One of this organizations purpose is to help Pennsylvania agricultural teachers continue growing with professional development and networking. This past Tuesday I had the opportunity to attend the Western Region PAAE meeting. Here are some points I picked up on during my time there. 

• Network!! Reach out to other companies within the industry in Pennsylvania. You can bring home so much information home to better prepare your students to obtain an industry job. We had the opportunity to speak with Scott Sheely from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture. He opened up to us about the need for certain careers in Pennsylvania. He stressed to us the importance of preparing these future workers in our agricultural classrooms. Networking with industry opens up a multitude of doors for your program and students. 

• Professional Development is a vital part of education, especially agricultural education. Technology is constantly changing around us and affecting the way agriculture is. We have to bring these changes into the classroom, but this is on a bigger scale. Tuesday night, we learned about the NOCTI exam. This exam is for completer of the ag program. Through meeting the representative for our area, we can have a better understanding of the exam. This could help us prepare our students or test proctors when the time comes. 

This PAAE meeting has helped me better my network and improve my knowledge. This will help me in the classroom to better prepare my students. I know I am just in an internship position right now, but I see the importance of continuing to grow throughout your career. I plan to grow through the Marine Corps and professional organizations such as PAAE. 

Sometimes you just have to take care of yourself (Week 13)

This was a very short week for me. I have spent only two days in the classroom. I learned a very valuable lesson this week. But first... let me tell you how it went.

• Monday went very well. I picked up a new class and dropped the electricity course. That makes 3 classes I am teaching right now. I got to begin my unit on Floral Design and life was good! I was starting to feel a little under the weather, but just thought it was from the changing environment. Tuesday rolls around and I begin teaching my third period class. Fourth period goes by well and so does fifth. By sixth period I could barely say a word! My voice was gone and my throat was super sore. I tried to save my voice for the PAAE meeting that night, but was in so much pain the whole time and still couldn't say a word. I was really looking forward to teaching on Wednesday and attending the Career Development Events on Thursday, but I was told to stay home. I did come in to teach floral design because we had live materials. 

• This week taught me that I need to take time to let myself heal. Going from a major toothache to not being able to talk within a week is not going to help my students get better in the classroom. For students to perform their best, I need to be on my best performance. I cannot do this when I can't even communicate clearly with the class. It kills me to be sitting at home instead of in the classroom, but sometimes you need that time to take care of yourself so you can perform better within the classroom. 

I learned this week that I need to take time and let my voice (and tooth!) heal before I take another wack at it in the classroom. Next week is a new week with a better, healthier self! 

I look forward to sharing my adventures of the centerpiece sale next week!

Ms. Yoest

Fundraisers... Fundraisers Everywhere! (Week 12)

Preping the shop

Time just becomes more filled with FFA activities and events as my student teaching experience is dwindling down. Last week, we had our Sausage Sale! Students cleaned the shop, cut, ground, seasoned, and packaged pork. This type of fundraiser is different for me. I have never been part of a program where they put together and sell meat. I learned a lot from this activity and so did the students. Here is what I have learned...

• You have to be strict with taking students out of class. When students find out how much fun it is to work in the ag shop for the day, they want to come back down or stay there. The advisor's job was to make sure students were going to their classes, no one was skipping class, and students were following procedures. Students will try to be tricky. They will do anything to get out of class. I have found it best to give incoming classes the procedures and task outside of the classroom, then round them up at the end of the period. This way you make sure the students are going in, washing their hands, and leaving. 

• You can never plan too far ahead. Going through inventory, collecting orders, and preparing the shop are all important for this type of fundraiser. 

• Have fun with it! I joined the students throughout the day when stations lacked help. It was a relaxed environment to get to better know your students. 

Morning pep talk with Mr. Wallace

This fundraiser was a new experience for me. I have never done anything like it before. The community, students, and school faculty love this fundraiser. This year we cut, ground, and packed 2,400 pounds of sausage. It was a successful sale and a successful learning experience!

Until next week,
Ms. Yoest