Week 9: Learning To Grow Through What I Go Through

Week nine surely felt like an emotional rollercoaster ride! Although there were many challenges to work through this week, there were many positive moments to reflect on as well! Let's take a look at a few of the highlights and opportunities for growth from week nine. 

To conclude our digestive system unit in Animal Care II, my fantastic students applied their knowledge through a dissection of a sheep's digestive system! These students barely let me finish asking my questions before they were able to explain the correct answer back to me! Earlier in the week, we used model magic to recreate the various textures of the ruminant stomach as we learned about the process of digestion. These simple activities during the earlier lessons helped my students truly understand these differences in the various digestive systems to apply in our end-of-unit dissection! This certainly was one of the greatest highlights of the week! 

                        

                        Reticulum texture model!

Inside of a real sheep's reticulum!

Another highlight from this week was engaging my horticulture class in a research experiment to explore

how plants reproduce! Using the scientific method, we were able to create a research experiment to test our hypothesis to determine if various plants reproduce differently. Although we have not seen any results yet, I am excited to see the class complete the scientific method cycle to determine if our hypothesis was correct! 

In the classroom, there were many other activities that went extremely well to try and enhance my
students understanding of content. For example, our landscape design class was able to create landscape models with playdough to apply the landscape design principles. In my introduction to agriculture class, we are completing a school-wide survey to determine the school's perspective on agricultural GMOs in crop production! We then created posters to apply our knowledge and hopefully share our knowledge outside of the classroom of how this form of biotechnology is the future of agriculture! 

These highlights are very encouraging looking back to see all that my students were able to accomplish, however, I know I have many areas in which I can grow as a teacher that I am very determined to work on in the remainder of my time here in Gettysburg. I first need to improve my abilities to make my lessons/content available for virtual learning. I am still learning the ropes of how to most effectively utilize our Learning Management System while teaching. 

Another goal for the next few weeks is to be a more consistent teacher for each class. I have found that as some of my strategies did not initially work with a few classes, I have now become fearful of failing. I want to meet all of my student's needs, but not be afraid if not every student loves every activity that I utilize to enhance the learning objectives. I have found that my fear has prevented me from truly teaching to the best of my abilities and I am going to be more mindful to push myself to be more consistent between all of my classes even though I may be fearful of how some students will respond. 

This past week was certainly an emotional journey, however, it is refreshing knowing that tomorrow marks the day of a brand new week. I will be traveling with my chapter to a leadership conference and then back to Penn State, so there are many things to look forward to! Without the tough days, the great days wouldn't seem so great! I am excited to grow through what I am going through and see what the journey will bring next!