What is it to be CREATIVE?

It's sad to say that this semester is coming to a close. I have learned so much, met some amazing people and strengthened bonds between others. The last day of lab was mysterious and fun. All we were told was to bring a unit plan that we had written and to come prepared to be creative. I was a little nervous since I know I'm not an overly creative person.

Once we were in lab, our instructor said we were taking a field trip. A field trip in college!? We went to the dollar tree to pick out 5 things that would make the unit plan we had in our hand more creative. I chose my FFA unit plan and had no clue how the dollar tree could help me make it more creative. I eventually settled on these items:

Party hats, white out, 2 different colored streamers and a feather duster. Might as well add a partridge in a pear tree! I chose the streams for my students to make the FFA official dress on a group member. My idea was to have it be a timed even where two teams had to dress up one person in official dress. Whichever team had the best dressed person won!

The party hat, white out and feather duster are to practice running a meeting. The party hats would have the different officer positions written on them with he white out. The students would take turns being each officers and therefore wearing each different hat. The feather duster would act as the gavel. I really liked how this lab brought out our creativity. They just let us go in a store with the one mission to make our unit more creative. I really hope they continue to do this lab!! Thanks for reading!

Life Knowledge

For one of my lab requirements I went to my cooperating center, Juanita Valley, and taught a life knowledge lesson. These lessons are found on The National FFA Organization website. They are completed lessons about FFA, SAE, Leadership, and there are many other topics. Since the class I was to teach just had a week on FFA I choose to teach the FFA accomplishment lesson. Students think about things they have accomplished in life, things they can accomplish through FFA and things they can accomplish in their future.

The lesson was quite a bomb, and by bomb I mean bad. It was difficult to complete some of the lesson worksheets together because I thought the students knew more than they did. When reviewing the lesson I didn't take into account that these students were freshman and had barely heard of FFA until last week. They had a very basic knowledge of what it was and I was trying to build off concepts that an upper classman might have. Therefore, I had to improvise throughout the lesson. As a class we focuses more on what the students were good at and where they needed improvement on. I had them draw out areas they felt accomplished in and areas they thought they could use work. They all shared their creations with the class. Next, we worked on how will the continue to improve. We talked about and defined accomplishment and reflected on what makes us feel accomplished. I think it was a good lesson, just not the one I had walked in prepared to teach.

I also got another experience on this day at my cooperating center, one that I wasn't quite prepared for. That day was also the fruit delivery day. Most FFA's in Pennsylvania do a citrus sale as their main fundraiser. My high school had a citrus sale but it wasn't as large as Juanita Valleys. Other than teaching, I spend the day unloading, sorting and stacking boxes upon boxes of fruit. I loved getting to see how they organized everything and got a few ideas of how I would like to do it in the future at my own school. It was a really great bonding experience with the kids. I really enjoyed meeting new students and seeing the students I spend time with in Kentucky for the National Convention. I was beyond tired when I got home but I was really glad it was such a productive day. Thanks for reading!!

Genius Hour - Where Passions Come Alive

Genius hour was the lab I was most excited for in my AEE 412 class. We were told to "geek out" on some educational aspect and come to class to present. It was so much fun to just have time to explore different types of research about teaching and learning. I immediately went to TED Talks. I love the educational TED Talks, I get very inspired. Immediately after watching Angela Duckworth speak about Grit I knew that's what I wanted to show my peers at our genius hour.

To rewind a little I should explain genius hour. This idea was developed and is implemented at Google. Google gives it's employees part of the paid work week (essential an hour) to work on any personal project they want to explore for the company. This is how Gmail the web master for google was brought to life. The employees are given this time to explore anything they want or fiddle with programs to enhance them. It give the employees freedoms which in turn makes some great ideas and motivated them.

Back to grit- Grit came about after looking at keys to success for students in school. There has always been a large portion of student success determined by socio economic status or SES. However, Ms. Duckworth has researched and found that grit can overrule SES. Grit is a students ability to persistently work towards long term goals. It's a students ability to persevere through life's challenges in order to achieve their goal. It shows determination, passion and persistency will help students achieve. So we've recognized what helps students achieve, now how do we foster a grit mindset in our students? BAM... that's the big question. I plan on keeping grit in mind and making a poster in the future to hang in my room as a reminder to my students to be resilient when times get tough.

It was awesome to "geek out" for the glass with all my peers. They had some amazing ideas and it's so much fun to hear and reflect on them all! Thanks for reading!!

First Day of School

During my semester I had a chance to do a test run of my first day of classes. For this test run we had to have our classroom expectations, procedures and consequences laid out. I found it rather difficult to find expectations, procedures and consequences that were broad enough to cover an array of areas, but specific enough to implement in everyday classes.

I started with my classroom expectations. These were a set of standards that I would hold every student accountable to for their actions. I thought of some of the most important qualities in  a person that I look at in my life. There very first one I came up with was acceptance. I want my students to be accepting of one another. Just because you accept something doesn't mean you condone it. Next I had respectful. I felt as though this one word would encompass many behaviors towards myself and other classmates. Lastly, I decided on professionalism. I want students to realize that although they have down time thought out the day and they are around their friends often that school is like their job. They should conduct themselves in a professional way, just as they would at their job. I welcome laughter and love to joke around but there should be a limitation. I changed the words around a little and came up with RAP.

Next was the procedures which I struggled to come up with. I came up with 3 lists before deciding on this one and I also looked up what other teachers were using. I knew that I wanted students to be online and not be wondering around. That's why everyday I will have a bell work for them to do so they come right into class and begin that while I take attendance and set the room up. Then the learning would occur and an ending activity would be in place. For example, I might have students write something on a post-it for their "ticket out" and have them post it around the room. It will be something I use to reflect on what happened in the class that day. Lastly, I wanted to ensure there was something fun and everyone left the class feeling good. Therefore, I implemented the fist-bump rule.

Lastly, to keep my procedures and expectations regulated I have my consequences. I used some of the consequences I've seen teachers use and I researched some. I think that prevention is by far the best option but there has to be consequences for the simple stability they provide. I do put a little note at the bottom that says "these may change depending on severity." I will explain to my students that if their behavior is so irate that it is necessary, I do reserves the right to give them detention right away or send them straight to the office.

 

Teaching these in lab went well. I got some positive feed back on how I was able to be polite yet stern when it came to rules. I obviously want students to look forward to coming to class but they will understand that they are responsible for their actions and will be held accountable. Thanks for reading!