Enhancing Classroom Activities (STB#11)

This week of student teaching felt like a slower pace week for me. It was the week after SLLC and CDE contests and I returned to a full week of classes. Although I enjoyed my time at contests and CDEs I was glad to jump back into my "normal" teaching routine. I use normal very lightly as I don't believe I ever have a normal week. However, if we as teachers had "normal" weeks or even days I don't think our job would be as fun as it is. The best part about walking into school every morning is that I know it will never be the same as the day before. Kids will test, love,yell, listen, disrespect or encourage you and the list could go on. But the most important thing to remember is that all of these characteristics of our students inspire us and shape us into better teachers.

In my Animal Science class, students had projects to share and present this past week. After hearing these presentations and looking at the results I was greatly disappointed. Most of them did not hand in the quality of work that I had expected. At the end of presentations I reflected on what I could do better or how I could have gotten better results. On Friday, I had the chance to travel to Penn State and meet with my fellow cohort members for one of our Pre-Internship Seminars. We were given time during this conference to discuss with our peers a lesson that was a "flop." I decided to bring along this project and ask my cohort members for help. 

The feedback that I got back was amazing. After feeling stuck and not knowing how I could have gotten students more excited or into this project, my peers brought a whole new perspective to the table. They gave me great suggestions as to how to build more student motivation and get students more involved with the project. One of their suggestions was to make the project competitive. My students especially really enjoy competition. I think that that may have boosted their interest in this project. Overall, I was pleased with this feedback! Reflection is a great thing and with multiple brains working together the results are mind blowing. :) 

This experience was also a wake up call for myself. Sometimes I feel that I get caught up in the day to day routine that I forget how exciting school can be. With my animal science project I didn't know what else I could do to make it better; however, my peers helped me realize that I need to take a little bit of extra time to think outside that box and prepare an exciting activity that students can't wait to participate in. My students more than anything deserve an awesome experience in my classroom and I want them to be excited walking into each of my classes. In finishing out my last couple of weeks (where did time go?) I want to push myself even more to develop awesome experiences for my students. As I am often encouraged at school with the question "how are you going to leave the wood pile higher?" I want to be able to answer this question at the end of my student teaching experience. 

Students had to find different Parli Pro motions hidden around the shop. #GoGetItEMoment