Last Friday I had the opportunity to observe one of my fellow cohort members, Reas Ianson, at her cooperating center. Rea is student teaching at Bermudian Springs High School with Mrs. Jarema. I spent the day sitting in on all of her classes and getting the chance to see her in action. This was both a refreshing and rewarding experience for me. I was able to take a lot of ideas back with me to my own cooperating center. I was also able to reevaluate my own student teaching experience and make some positive changes.
Rea teaches 11 periods a day. At first I thought wow, how can this be done! However I found that back to back classes make the day go extremely fast and you are constantly working with students. Rea also teaches mostly agricultural mechanics classes. Students work out in the shop on a variety of projects. I got to see students welding, grinding, cleaning mowers, disassembling engines, draining oil, checking spark plugs and the list could go on. The shop itself is not a large shop, but there sure is a lot of motivated students that utilized every single resource available to them. Every student was productively working on a project during class.
There was so much happening in one class that I able to just soak in and absorb so much information during my observations. It just so happens that I started my small gas engines unit with my Ag Mech students the week before coming to visit Rea. In my class we started learning about the basics in class before allowing them to work out in the shop. I was worried about letting students out in the shop to take apart an engine. I didn't feel confident that I would even know what I was doing. After seeing this happen in Rea's Ag Mech class, however, I was much more excited and motivated to get my students out in the shop.
Mrs. Jarema was also extremely helpful. She provided me with many great tips to teaching small gas engines. She also gave me an excellent workbook with answer keys and information on different engine parts and functions. Mrs. Jarema taught us and the students how to use a spark plug tester and clean a spark plug since we needed a bit of a refresher from our AEE 350 class. Mrs. Jarema also had Rea and I replace grinders on the grinder. This was something that I have never done before. We also had to replace an oxygen tank for the gas welder. There were just so many great examples such as these that helped me learn about new aspects of the shop.
Being able to observe both Rea and Mrs. Jarema in their element was very refreshing for me. Rea is such a bubbly and relaxed person and I saw how comfortable students felt around her. They thoroughly enjoyed her classes. Over the past few weeks I feel as though I have gotten caught up in litter details that have frustrated me. These frustrations have carried over to the way I reacted to students and carried my presence in the classroom. After visiting Rea I realized that I need to change my own attitude towards these little frustrations and create a more relaxed and engaging classroom for my Ag Mech students. I did this and I saw immense changes in my students. I also got my students out in the shop to start their engine disassembly and they did awesome! I found that I know more about engines than I think I know, but most importantly I used the information that I observed in Rea's classes and implemented these same techniques into my own classes. I felt much more prepared and confident for my shop classes after visiting her and seeing how things are done at Bermudian.
I named the title of this blog post "There is Nothing Median About Bermudian" because I truly have seen some amazing things happening in their Agriculture program. They go above and beyond to provide a variety of resources and hands on experiences for their students. Students don't take these opportunities for granted either. Students were extremely focused and motivated to the tasks that were asked of them. Whether working in the shop or mixing fertilizer for the greenhouse, these students really impressed me. I think vising Rea was just what I needed to encourage myself to raise the bar higher at my own cooperating center. I brought back with me so many new great ideas and resources that helped me boost student motivation and engagement!
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