Week 14: Coming to an End

As I look back over the past 14 weeks I can't believe all of the things I have got to experience. This week was as exciting as all the others were! My time here at CASH are coming to an end which means I have to hand the classes back over to Ms Aurand! We are wrapping up our units on animals
science and welding and getting ready to move on to new things!

The metal cowboy projects are coming along great and the plants are growing great in the greenhouse! I am looking forward to coming back for the CASH FFA banquet in May and seeing the flowers we planted being used as center pieces and door prizes!

The most exciting part of the week was having the opportunity to help run the Dairy Foods CDE at the local Spring Round-Up. This day full of contests including dairy judging, floriculture, meat judging, wildlife and small gas engines was held at the Lawrence County fairgrounds. Students from many Western PA schools can to compete in these events!

This was so beneficial because I got the chance to see all the work it takes to prepare for a contest and what it takes to run the CDE! I got to administer the written test portion of the dairy foods contest and even judge the corsages that the students in the floriculture contest made!

During my time at Round-Up I was reminded of the endless opportunities and skills that FFA provides these students. All of the students were so excited to get there to compete, meet other FFA members from all the different schools and hang out with their classmates.

I'm thankful for all of the opportunities I've had here at CASH and I'm ready to enjoy this last week!

Visiting Carly-Jean the Ag Ed Machine!

On Wednesday, April 1st I had the chance to head to Fort Cherry High School and Visit another 2015 Penn State student teacher Carly-Jean Schaefer! I loaded up my car and headed to Southwestern PA to visit and see what the students at Fort Cherry were up to!

I had the chance to visit on a unique day when they were having a CDE day. Students participated in Job Interview and Sales competition! Besides the CDE's I also got to observe Ms Schaefer in a few different classes. 

We started the day by doing some composting in the bins that one of her classes built. It was awesome to see not only the bins, but how they are implementing them throughout the entire school. Carly and her cooperating teacher Mrs. Hoover, go around the cafeteria at lunch and collect food scraps to compost! I also got to observe Ms Schaefer working with her floriculture students. They were making Easter arrangements where they added things such as Easter eggs and peeps to the arrangements for some extra color and Easter touch!

One of the most impressive thing about my visits was getting to see the facilities at Fort Cherry. The greenhouse, floral arranging room, hydroponic systems and classroom were all very impressive! 

Overall, it was such a great day to catch up with my dear friend Carly and see her in her element. I was very impressed in the way she handled herself around the students and you can definitely tell they respected her and enjoyed having her as their instructor!

Week 13: From Scared to Successful

I can't believe that I only have 2 more weeks here at CASH! The time has flown by so fast and I can't express the impact that this opportunity has had on me. The teachers, the students and all of the things Ive had the chance to experience have been nothing short of awesome! I am so excited for these last few days I get to spend here and am sad to leave CASH but I'm excited for whatever life hands me next!

This week has been a great example of getting over fears and finding our strengths. Last semester as I prepared to come to CASH to student teach, I got more nervous the closer it got. I was excited about my placement and the things I was going to teach but still I was as nervous as ever. I was afraid of messing up or even scared that I wouldn't like it. Once I got here though, I realized that I really did love to teach and that all the people here had my back. As the weeks went on I got more and more comfortable and was starting to see growth in myself and also my students. 

This week I saw the same thing happening in many of my students. A while back the Agriculture 1 students began building wooden benches. I watched as they struggle to use the power tools, were afraid to use the saws and spent more time talking about how they couldn't do it instead of giving it a try. The same thing was happening with the older students as they worked on their welding projects. The students were afraid they would burn themselves or that their welds wouldn't be good enough. 

Well this week as our projects are coming to an end, I noticed that the students were working in the shop like they have been doing it their whole lives! They were working together to get their projects done. They weren't saying that they couldn't do it but instead showing off what they had done to every other student in the class. The students who were afraid to weld were the first ones in the booth and had some of the best beads of the day. 

It made me so happy to see the students so excited about their projects they had finished. It really made all the long shop days of working with complaining students worth it and it made me proud to be their teacher!

"Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway."

-John Wayne

Week 12: A Quick Week

Week 12 was quite the short week for me at CASH! Earlier this year I was not a big fan of the normal snow and cold weather here in Crawford County but this week I was glad that they are used to it. Because they were used to the crazy weather we didn't end up with many snow days! That meant that this week I had a nice five day Easter Break! 

I was only in school Monday and Tuesday of this week and on Wednesday I went to visit Carly at Fort Cherry High School! Those two days ran smoothly as we continued to work on our wooden benches, metal projects and learned about animal science and digestion! The students were all very excited for the upcoming break so it took some extra effort to keep them focused and on task throughout the day!

On Monday night we had an FFA meeting where we started to talk about the spring banquet. It has been a great learning experience to see all of the work that goes into having a successful banquet. Here at CASH they plan for around 200 people to come to their banquet! I also had the chance to sit down with Ms Aurand and put in an order for all of the napkins, table cloths, awards, certificates and other things that we need!

Overall, even though the week was short it went well! I am looking forward to getting some work done over break and coming back to enjoy the last couple weeks of my time here!

SAE Visit #2

For my second SAE visit, I had the chance to visit  Brittany Chason at her job at Bortnick’s Dairy. Brittany is a senior who has been active in FFA throughout all four years of high school and serves as the chapter secretary this year. She has a placement SAE and gets paid for her time milking cattle. The visit occurred at Bortnick’s farm in the parlor! The farm is a local dairy where they milk over a thousand cattle a day. They also have a bio-digester on the farm that I got to check out on my visit as well!

Before the visit we had to make preparations both with Brittany and her boss to make sure it was alright for us to visit. We made sure we had everything we needed and headed to the farm! Brittany works in the
second parlor on the farm which is the smaller of the two. She has to milk, make sure the cattle are healthy

and make sure the barn is clean!

For this SAE I think it is important to evaluate the student on their work, an evaluation from their boss and their record keeping. Brittany uses AET to keep track of her time, her activities and her income at Bortnick’s farm. This was an area where recommendations were being made. We talked to the student about the importance of keeping up to date with records and encouraged her to enter her work to AET more frequently. 

I was unsure about how placement SAE’s worked so getting to go along and observe on the visit was great. I think that placement SAE’s can be perfect for students who do not raise animals or maybe want to try something different! 
 

Week 11: Is Technology Helping or Hurting?

One of the unique opportunities that I have here at CASH is the chance to use a lot of technology in the classroom. The school is one to one which means that each student has their own iPad! I also have access to my own iPad and an Apple TV which means that I can project my iPad on to the screen so everyone can see it.

This has given me the chance to do a lot of cool things in the classroom and make my lectures a little more exciting. However, the iPads can also have some problems in the classroom. Check out this chart below of some of my observations! 

Overall the biggest struggle has been the distraction that using iPads in the classroom can create. When we are using them for research or to take notes, students can quickly open other tabs. 

On the other hand, the awesome things that you can do with iPads has been so fun to utilize. I have loved using NearPod instead of showing PowerPoints. The other nice thing is that I can easily divide students up into groups for research!

Having iPads in the classroom can be challenging at times but has been an awesome experience!

Week 10: Learners Today, Leaders Tomorrow

What an exciting week this has been! To begin, I started out my week by attending my first ever SLLC (State Legislative Leadership Conference) in Harrisburg! 

On Saturday morning we loaded up the van and headed east to work the Keystone Truck and Tractor pulls at the farm farm show complex. Our boys got to be down on the track dragging the exhaust bag and our girls worked at the doors, VIP areas and sold 50/50 tickets. This was a great activity because not only did the students get to attend the pulls, the proceeds benefit the FFA!

On Sunday morning we began the conference. We had 3 Juniors, 1 senior and a senior who was selected to be a second year scholar on the trip with us. Throughout the conference the students had the chance to learn more about parliamentary procedure and different aspects of the legislative system. It was awesome to see how excited the students were and to see so many different FFA chapters come together. 

On Monday we spent the afternoon doing community service at a local church. We cleaned windows, walls and everything in between. It was a lot of fun to be able to give back to the community while attending the conference.

Being on this trip was a great learning experience for many reasons. I was able to see all the behind the scenes work that has to take place in order for a trip to be successful. Everything from making sure the students knew what they needed to pack, making sure we were registered properly and planning out where we were stopping to eat along our five hour drive.

When we got home on Tuesday I was exhausted but knew I had to get to work on my lessons for the rest of the week. In Ag 1 we continued working on our benches on the shop days and while we were in the classroom we talked about swine. This week instead of lecturing and having the students take notes, I assigned them a breed of pig and they had to look up the information and present it to the class. This worked well becuase the students were more involved and took more ownership over the lesson.

In Ag 2 we are perfecting our Arc welding skills but running beads and finally doing some butt joints. This was a fun activity because after the students welding their metal together we would bust it apart and see how deep their penetration was and how good their weld actually was. 

In regards to the FFA chapter, our busy week continued as we had the chance to go out into the community on Thursday night and perform for the local Lions Club. A group of our square dancers traveled to the meeting and did a demonstration of three songs and ate dinner with the members of the Lions Club. It was great to meet more members of the community and show off what the FFA has been up to.

Next week will be another busy week because our fundraiser will be delivered, our new jackets are coming in, and we will be attending the local livestock committee meeting and the western region PAAE meeting! 

"Some people dream of success, others wake up and work hard for it."

-Winston Churchill