Week 3: The third times a charm!

This was my third week student teaching at Conneaut Area Senior High. The first week I was excited, the second week I just wasn’t feeling it but this week I think it all clicked. This week I felt more confident in my lessons and more comfortable in the classroom.

In my Ag 2 class we continued to discuss plant structures and then began talking about soil. We did some fun activities including using Play dough to create parts of a flower and making our very own edible soil profiles. Also, the geraniums that we planted last week have come up and are looking great. It has been fun to watch them grow in the greenhouse while we are talking about the parts of plants in the classroom.

On Tuesday I began teaching my Ag 3/4 class which is made up of Juniors and Seniors. We began by doing some introductions then got right into our lesson on Genetics. Throughout the week we did activities figuring out which traits we have that are dominant or recessive such as eye color and whether or not we had curly hair, practiced Punnett squares and did the Easter Egg lab. I really enjoyed getting to do the Easter Egg lab because it was one I had done in the Fall during our 412 lab. I made some adjustments and the activity went so much better this time around.

This week I also got to attend my first FFA meeting. It was exciting because this was my first FFA meeting ever! We discussed fundraisers, upcoming activities and National FFA Week. I am really looking forward to all the fun activities and events that I am going to get to do with the FFA Chapter while I’m here!

On Thursday, I also had my first observation with Mrs. Rice. It was awesome to get some feedback on my teaching and discuss my plans for my rest of the semester.

After these first three weeks I have noticed a few things that I need to work on during my lessons. The first is my questioning. I am working on being able to ask higher level of thinking questions but

to also perfect my wait time. The second is my lesson wrap up. I need to do a better job of summarizing at the end of each lesson and making sure I am using all of my class time.

“If a job is worth doing, it’s worth doing well.”