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Week 11: The Week of Almosts

All I can say about the ending of week 11 is UGHHHH! Because of Easter break, Pequea Valley has an awesome 4-day weekend. With a short week this week and long weekend coming up, we have a lot of labs, activities, and units to wrap up. Food science students were supposed to bake pie crust (more on this later) and horticulture students were supposed to continue to build hydroponics systems. Unfortunately, like every other day this school year, we had an obstacle thrown at us via email on Wednesday after school. One word; COVID. What does that mean?? It means a last minute shift to a virtual learning day to end the week, and no more labs/hands-on activities. 

Huge shout-out to my CT for bringing me coffee today!! It was the perfect way to start a virtual learning day!

As a college student, I understand the frustration and lack of motivation on the student end of things when it comes to virtual learning. Now as I shift to a teacher's perspective on virtual learning, I know all the effort and hard work that goes into having one evening to change plans from very hands-on to a virtual plan. This wasn't the first time we had to shift to virtual, but it doesn't make it any easier. 

One of my favorite classes that I have had the opportunity to learn and teach has been Foods Science. I was really nervous to pick this class up because I have the least amount of experience, but working with my CT's to teach this course has resulted in me learning so much about food science and how to create fun, hands-on labs for students to connect what they are learning to actual food products. This week, students starting the "Lipids" unit and the lab that goes with this unit is creating pie crust using different types of lipids. They will be baking their pie crusts and tasting to see if canola oil, butter, or Crisco will taste the best! 

Students had their dough in pans in the fridge ready to bake and taste for Thursday before the long weekend kicked in, but with the shift to virtual learning, we had to quickly change the course of this unit and their lab. Instead of eating their pie crusts, we worked on completing Lipids notes that they will need for their exam next week. Hopefully on Tuesday, we can pick up where we left off and bake/taste their creations. 

Horticulture was another upsetting switch. It is really hard for students to find motivation when working on a pretty big project with partners and then switching to a virtual way of collaborating. Instead of the building procedure, we had students go into breakout rooms with their groups and work on updating their procedures, discuss changes they need to make with their projects, and start working on a GoogleSlides presentation that they will use to share their hydroponics system with the rest of their class. Overall, this went pretty well and there was some great discussions happening in the breakout rooms!

The switch to virtual is never fun, especially when it happens one day before a long weekend, but I was really proud and impressed with the amount students that showed up for their classes! Virtual classes can be really boring (both students and teachers) and finding different ways to communicate and learn online is a great way to interact with each other. Today, I utilized Jamboard a lot, played information short videos, used breakout rooms, and the handy-dandy chat box on Google Meet. It wasn't perfect and was definitely not as interactive as an in-person day would've been, but I think that it went really well considering it all. 

Last, but certainly not least, I do need to give a nice SHOUT-OUT to Dr. Ewing and my fellow cohort member, Nicole, for giving me inspiration and the actual link to a virtual welding game! It was a fun, short way to introduce welding virtually, as the Intro to Ag Mechanics students will begin the welding unit next week! 

I am not very good at this... but my students were! Click HERE to go to the virtual welding game!

PSUAGED21, I know many of you have had to teach virtually at one point or another, so what are some strategies you have to create a fun/engaging virtual setting? 

Comments

  1. John EwingApril 1, 2021 at 12:06 PM

    Michaela,

    Sorry that my last set of comments didn't upload. Basically, I wanted to say... Great job and I appreciate all of the extra effort that you and other educators are putting forth to help our youth, during this time! Keep up the great work and continue to find innovative ways to help our students learn.

    -Dr. Ewing

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nicole GuiseApril 5, 2021 at 4:53 PM

    Ah, a shoutout in Michaela's blog - I feel famous! I sympathize with your frustrations from switching to remote to f2f with an evening's notice - not fun. But sounds like you adapted and overcame!!! I love ho much inquiry you have been able to incorporate into your Food Science class. I can't wait to read more about how the pie crusts turn out.

    ReplyDelete

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