This semester, we have been taught a lot about how to be great agricultural educators. While I appreciate everything we have been taught, much of it has been hard for me to really learn without being able to do it in a real classroom. Cue, microteaching.
For our microteaching experience, we work with a local agricultural education program to schedule a 3-day mini unit in one of their classes. With two of my classmates, I visited Mrs. Poorman at Bellefonte Area High School. We went in for a day to observe Mrs. Poorman working with her students and then it was our turn. We were scheduled to teach three days before Penn State let out for Thanksgiving.
The class I was teaching was Mrs. Poorman's Introduction to Agriculture class, mostly consisting of freshmen. They had just begun their Dairy Science unit so I decided to teach my lessons on total mixed rations, a topic I will also be teaching in the spring. I was so excited to get the chance to see what students would think about the activities I had come up with and to have my first real teaching experience.
Wednesday morning, I introduced myself and off we went. It only took a matter of seconds before I realized how crucial this experience and student teaching are. As the quote from Benjamin Franklin says, when we are taught we may remember but when we are involved we truly learn. Standing in front of real high school students and teaching definitely taught me more in those 45 minutes than it taught them.
One skill that I really got to put to the test was thinking on my feet. About halfway through the lesson, I realized that I did not have enough content and we were going to be done very, very early. I slowed my teaching down and hoped that the students had questions but when I got to the end of my content, there was still almost 20 minutes left in the period! So think on my feet I did! I remembered an E-Moment that involved the students creating a news report about the content they had just learned so I used the remainder of the class time to complete this activity. We still finished early but Mrs. Poorman assured me that sometimes it's best to give the students an extra minute or two to pack up and chat.
Another aspect of the lesson that I noticed I need to make changes to, aside from the timing, is the note-taking process. To help the students stay on track, I made them a guided notes packet. This allowed them to follow along more easily and encouraged them to take notes on important aspects of the lesson. I thought that this was helpful and it is something I may continue doing. One issue that I ran into, however, was the fact that students were actually taking notes. When I would switch to the next slide, students would focus 100% of their attention to what was on the screen and doing their best to write it all down. I quickly learned to wait while they wrote instead of trying to steal their attention away from the screen. Part of the issue was that the students all completed their notes with very different timing. While some would jot down a few things and be done in 15 seconds, others would write down every word on the screen and take a minute or two. This meant that while some students were ready to move on and would begin talking to their neighbors, I couldn't begin teaching until the others were caught up. I tried combatting this by letting everyone take a minute or so and when the majority of the class was ready I would say something like, "While everyone finishes getting these notes, let's talk about..." I felt that this acknowledged the students that were still working but still allowed the rest of us to move on. In the future, one way I plan to avoid this issue is by putting less text on the screen and by having the talking points come up one at a time instead of a whole slide.
While I was sad to not have been able to test out my lab (and was left with lots of snacks) I feel that this experience was as real as they come. Weather can and will change lesson plans and we have to learn to adapt. There's no doubt in my mind that this spring I will have another snow day or two and I will need to be ready to adjust my plan and keep the students on track.
For 22 years of my life, I've waited up at night, checking for a delay or snow day every few minutes, hopeful that I would have a day off to enjoy the weather. The tables have definitely turned. Miss Herr is gonna teach come rain or snow!
Victoria, the phrase "adapt and overcome" is key to remember when teaching. Sometimes we must adapt due to things beyond our control, such as weather. Other times, we adapt to things we can control, such as student needs. You did a great job of doing this with adjusting your pacing and giving students more "wait" time when you noticed them moving at different speeds with their note taking!
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