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Caution: Full Course Load

Week 7 of student teaching was one of those weeks that felt like it was going slow each day, but now that it has past, it felt like it flew by. This is officially the end of my first week teaching a full course load. I know am teaching Vet Science, Intro to Ag Mech, Horticulture, and Food Science, with Food Science being the latest course I pick up. The week was full of trial and error, projects being almost completed, and a few half-days to plan for!

The Into to Ag Mechanics students wrapped up their plumbing projects this week, which completed the unit! They each got to test their creations that took weeks to complete for each of them. Their plumbing squares included pex, cpvc, copper pipes, galvanized pipes, and polyethylene and then at the end they tested to see if their square would have any leaks in them. It was a successful testing day and no none had any leaks! This was such a fun project to work on and I can confidently say that this will be one of my favorite things that I did while student teaching at Pequea Valley. 


The Horticulture class capped up a week of learning about cleft grafting, whip and tongue grafting, t-bud grafting, patch bud grafting, and air layering. They performed each of these tasks with Twizzlers, pretzels, and posters! It was a lot of fun watching them create these grafting techniques using foods, and I also got to see them create very creative and interactive posters for the t-bud and patch bud grafting. There were many things that I would change about these in the future, but it was an overall fun activity for me and the students. 

We wrapped up the week with one of my favorite classes - Vet Science. This is the class that I am teaching for the entire time that I am at Pequea Valley and right now we are working on the fetal pig dissection. We made it through the digestive system and the respiratory system (for the most part) and are now transitioning into the circulatory system. The students have been working on the dissections for weeks, and even the students that were terrified to dissect are loving it! Groups are helping each other learn about the organs found in each system, which I love to see. We only have a few more days left with our fetal pigs and in the Animal Anatomy & Physiology Unit unit we move on, but before we do we will be taking a closer look at the brains!
This week was so much fun, and while I still have a lot to work on and areas of improvement, I can feel myself growing in other areas. @PSUAGED21 are you at a full course load yet? I would love to hear about how things are going for you and ways that you are working to improve your teaching methods!


Comments

  1. John EwingMarch 8, 2021 at 5:23 AM

    Michaela,
    It looks like you had a great week! What are some of the assessment strategies that you used throughout these units? It looks like there were many great opportunities for students to "show what they know"!
    -Dr. Ewing

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nicole GuiseMarch 8, 2021 at 4:22 PM

    Hi Michaela - I am also teaching a full coarse load and have a Food Science class. What is your class learning right now? I love how you implemented not just the plumbing project, but testing it! So important! How did you troubleshoot with students if they saw a leak in their project? I can't help but thinking this would be a great project/opportunity for students to do a self-evaluation!

    ReplyDelete

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