Dear future Ag teachers

Classroom management skills are important for any teacher to hold forever, but it takes practice and knowledge to master the skill. Managing your classroom will result in an effective learning process. Here are 5 tips on classroom management that I have found useful.

1. Start strong. This could quite possibly be THE most important part of managing a classroom. Starting out the year with a strong attitude is better than starting with a weak attitude and trying to become stronger. If you start strong, you can always lighten up once you begin trusting your class. The first day will either win you or lose you the classroom. 
2. Always remind students of the expectations, procedures, and consequences. Throughout the year students become comfortable in front of you and their classmates. Reminding students of your classroom rules and consequences can bring the students back to you. 
3. Reinforce good behavior. No matter how old students are, it is always best to reinforce good behavior to receive more of it during class. Just a simple phrase of, "Thank you for raising your hand," will remind students that it is important to follow the classroom expectations. Behavior can also be reinforced through rewards. Rewarding students for doing stuff like cleaning the shop, practicing safety procedures, or simply having students' respect will reinforce the behavior you want your students to have. 
4. Prepare, prepare, prepare. Preparation of the classroom is key. Having your lesson plans ready, the classroom seating chart complete, and a prepared classroom create the environment that you are in charge. 
5. Procedures for starting and ending class. These procedures allow students structure within the classroom. It will help you maintain the class with minimal distractions, frustrations, and loss of classroom time. With the periods only being 40 to 50 minutes long, every minute counts. 

These tips on classroom management will help out a beginning or student teacher. It takes time and practice to master this skill, but it is always better to try and fail then to not try at all. 

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.

How DO you teach?

We are quickly moving through the semester. As I dig further into lesson planning, I learn more about effective questioning and other teaching techniques. Here are some ways that this weeks readings have helped me.

• Effective questioning goes a long way in the classroom. 
• Questions are used to assess the knowledge of students, create interest, and develop a relationship between concepts. There are different ways to ask questions depending on the response you want to receive. They can be open ended, divergent, and convergent questions. I have already began using these to create my lesson plans. When I think of a great probing questions for discussion, I write it in the plan in the section that it goes with. It is best to think of these questions before hand.
• Maximizing student participation
• Some ways to gain student participation through questioning are to call students by name, ask questions throughout the lesson, randomly select students to answer. Calling students by name gives them a sense of belonging instead of just being a number. Asking probing questions throughout keeps the attention of the students and breaks up the lesson from just lecturing. Randomly choosing those students to answer the questions will prevent intimidation of others. Maximizing student participation will bring more discussion to the table. I plan to use these techniques throughout labs and student teaching. 
• Experiments as a teaching technique

• Experiments can be used to solve a problem. They can be individual or classroom conducted. This teaching technique allows students to plan by collecting materials and outlining the procedures. This is a technique I will be using in the classroom when student teaching. I want students to experiment with how amperage affects a weld's strength. Students will also be experimenting in the advanced single cylinder engines course. They will have to tear down engines and figure out why it wouldn't run. 

These readings have brought understanding to me about effective questioning and different teaching techniques. I have outlined just some ways of incorporating this new information to my lessons and cannot wait to use them!

Erin Yoest

Reflecting on my first "mini" lesson

The other day I had the challenge of teaching a lesson that was given during the first day of class. These lessons were anonymously chosen. I had one of the harder lessons try and teach. As I look back on my video from the 15 minutes, I realized that there were many things I did wrong. I thought I had it planned out very well, until it was actually put into play with a live audience. The three things i picked up on right away were:

1. I had no objectives! :(
2. two minutes into the lesson I realized that my method was NOT working
3. I took too much time on revealing the symbol's matching word 

Now let me back it up a little because you are probably wondering what my lesson was. I had the task of teaching 31 symbols with a matching word to each. The end assessment was to decipher a paragraph and have the students fill out a learner satisfaction form.

After the lab was over, I read those learner satisfaction forms. About half of them said they were unsatisfied with the learning they received. I compare the comments to what I saw in the video and they were all right. I needed to put more enthusiasm into what I am teaching. I also needed some sort of learning activity to go with the symbols. As I was half way through the lesson, it dawned on me that I was boring them.. a lot. But I couldn't stop then. I kept on going, and I feel like that was one good thing I did during the lesson. I learned a lot from this one experience and it can only go uphill from here!


Until next time, "Don't dwell on what went wrong. Instead focus on what to do next. Spend your energies on moving forward toward finding the answer."   -Denis Waitley

~Erin Yoest~