Effective Teaching 101

 As I continue through my agriculture education journey, it is becoming very real that I will be teaching very shortly! This semester as I am getting ready for the journey in the classroom, I have learned so many different techniques on how to be the best teacher that I can be! This week's investment reading was just as impactful as the rest of what I have learned. Let's check out some key takeaways from my reading! 

3- Connections to student teaching 

• I have never thought about the power of a good question. Oftentimes, a student's success depends on the direction and clarity given by the instructor. It is important to think about the questions that I will ask my students to make sure that they are thought-provoking but also clear enough that my students will be successful in learning. 
• Demonstrations can be a very effective strategy for teaching, but it takes a lot of time to think about the appropriate steps and procedures to help your student learn. One of the most impactful quotes was "Teachers need to not only present the steps but also to elaborate on the steps, why the steps work, principles of science to remember, points of safety to follow, and special techniques (tricks of the trade) to develop." (Group Teaching Techniques, 129)
• As I am planning my lessons for student teaching, I am finding it difficult to write meaningful lesson objectives. One major takeaway to apply in my classroom is that if I want to challenge my students to a high cognitive level, then I need to reflect that in my teaching! I am excited to work on this as I plan my lessons and then teach in the classroom!

2- Connections to other courses

• In Education Psychology, we learned the importance of higher-order thinking. I think that those lessons are very applicable to what I learned in these readings. It's important to challenge your students to think critically and perform at the high bloom action verbs.
• One of the most impactful classes that I have taken was Animal Science 201. This class incorporated a variety of different strategies of teaching. For example, we had many group work projects in lab, a series of presentations, and many more examples from the reading. As a student, I was very successful in the class because of the strong teaching strategies discussed in the readings! I hope to be a successful teacher like the one I had in this course

1- Connection to another source

• I have heard of SMART Goals before, but I enjoyed reading about SMART Learning Objectives. This website was really informative and applicable to the other readings that I did this week!  

https://www.vectorsolutions.com/resources/blogs/how-to-write-smart-learning-objectives/ 

Sources: Newcomb, L.H., McCracken, J.D., Warmbrod, J.R., & Whittington, M.S. (2004). Methods of teaching agriculture. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Whittington, M.S. (2005). Writing objectives in secondary agriculture courses that challenge students to think. Agriculture Education Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.naae.org/profdevelopment/magazine/archive_issues/Volume77/v77i5.pdf (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.