Problem Solving Approach

This was my favorite lesson to create! This lesson was probably one of my hardest ones to facilitate; however, I think with a few tweaks to my lesson plan to add some clarity and some additional information (scenario) added to the worksheet it will flow much smoother in the future!

To be continued...

Evaluating Learning

There are so many ways to assess student learning... and not every method will accurately assess every student, which is why I plan to evaluate my student's learning using a variety of assessment methods. In particular, many students in an Ag classroom excel due to the hands-on approach to learning and the real-world applications. Rather than just having my students take only multiple-choice exams, short answer, and fill-in-the-blank exams, I plan to design some rubrics and utilize practicums to evaluate their learning which I feel will be a more accurate assessment of their knowledge and skills, and will give students that opportunity to "show what they know" rather than just testing their ability to regurgitate facts and figures.

I think rubrics can be a very beneficial tool in agriculture education; however, care needs to be taken to make sure that they are not too complicated to follow, or too wordy. In trying to "think outside the box" to come up with ways to accurately assess student learning, I am considering using Quizlet to help my students learn. For example, students would be responsible for finding 5-10 "flash cards" that directly relate to what we are learning in class, and save them to the class and unit folder. Some of the exam questions would come from those saved "flashcards" (which could include pictures), and students would also receive part of their grade from selecting and adding the 5-10 "flashcards" to the class and unit folder... just another way I thought of to "kill 2 birds with 1 stone" to help students learn while providing them with an additional way to earn part of their grade rather than just utilizing a unit exam. 

Obviously a little below HS level, but I could see them being very beneficial for learning different breeds of animals, classifying parasites, identifying tools for Ag mechanics, or practicing plant ID.

In my opinion... not everyone that can pass a written exam actually understands the material - they may just be good at memorizing and regurgitating..., and not everyone who does poorly may actually not understand the material - rather they may be able to better demonstrate what they know through a hands-on project or explain what they know through a story or scenario, but struggle to show that knowledge because they don't do well with written exams.

Project-Based Learning and Problem Solving

In my mind, utilizing project-based learning and problem solving techniques to teach are 2 very powerful tools that we, as future agriculture educators, can incorporate in our lessons to pique student interest, and initiate learning and understanding by creating a need to learn and by providing real-world application!

The article on problem solving very nicely explains the 2 types of knowledge - Declarative and Procedural knowledge, which is also something we have briefly covered in my EDPSY class. To create good problem solving skills in our students we need to make sure we include the facts, concepts, principles in our lessons and make sure that are problems are well structured to minimize confusion for our students - not that they need to be simple - just not confusing.

These problem-solving skills are essential to teach to our students because they have so many real-world applications. For instance, veterinarians and farmers use these skills everyday to make management decisions and diagnose sick animals. We also need to make sure that students make the connection to these real-life situations while we are teaching. Another factor that we should consider is that we need to make sure that students actually learn to problem solve for themselves, not just find the answers, although, don't get me wrong, that part is essential as well.

Here is another great resource on problem solving...
https://www.teachervision.com/problem-solving/teaching-methods/48451.html

Here is a quick overview...

Problem-solving involves three basic functions:

1. Seeking information
2. Generating new knowledge
3. Making decisions

FLC Reflection

To be perfectly honest, facilitating for Fall Leadership Conference (FLC) was a challenge for me for several reasons and definitely stretched me. 
First, having no FFA experience, except what I have read about and heard from others, adds its challenges because I only have a superficial understanding of the FFA component of Agriculture education; however, I am excited to learn more about this part of the 3 circle model, and I am sure that attending National Convention and student teaching will give me a much better understanding of FFA. 
Second, facilitating the "catch all" group presented some real challenges because we had to design the workshop in such a way as to include everyone and yet try to make it beneficial for all of the officers in attendance on an individual basis. Another challenge that we faced with was that we got an "extra" 8 students added to our group... We had chaplains, historians, student advisers, a parliamentarian, and a few other "random" officers who didn't seem to be sure of their position or role. 

My focus was primarily working with the chaplains, and we discussed and reviewed several invocations/prayers as a group. The  students then each compiled an invocation that they could use in their own chapter. Furthermore, I added a scenario of losing a community member that was an important contributor/supporter of their FFA chapter, and initiated a conversation on ways that they as the chapter chaplain could initiate recognition from their chapter to the family to extend their sympathy and express thanks for their support. Each of the chaplains were given a template for writing a sympathy card, and then they created their own scenario and wrote a sympathy card for practice. It would have been neat to have a few of them share what they wrote, but it never crossed my mind at the time... guess that is what reflection is for... to make notes of needed improvement for the future.
Lastly, I felt that overall the workshop went well, the campfire theme was a great way to capture there interest and to encourage participations, and I felt that being able to dim the lights really added to the overall effect (Teach Like a Pirate application!). While there were a few "issues", none of them got out of hand... there were several from one chapter who came close to being "asked" to be separated because they were distracting each other (towards the last portion of the workshop), another student wanted to continually contribute, and several students seemed really shy and it was difficult to get them to share and contribute to the conversations; however, it was very beneficial to me to observe these situations, and now I have some time to process and think about how I would handle them if they were in my class...  I also feel that having the catch all group gave me a little more preparation to work with a more diverse group of students in the future.

Individual Teaching Techniques

As we acknowledge the fact that every student learns in their own unique way, we must consider how we can best help our students to learn. One important component is to realize that there are three primary types of learners, auditory, visual, and kinesthetic.

While most learners use some combination of all three types, learners are typically stronger in one of the three areas which makes it critical to include all three of the components in all of our lessons. This will allow us to "individually" target and teach all of our learners on a small scale; however, can also be considered a form of differentiated instruction when we use a variety of instructional methods to accommodate a variety of learning styles. To further expand this concept of individual learning, we need to get to know our students so that we can incorporate specific student interests and questions within our lessons, so that they will take an interest in the subject matter and their own learning.

Chapter 4 in Methods of Teaching Agriculture (2004), lays out how using problem solving to facilitate learning can be incorporated to increase individual learning. Several scenarios are presented with a problem and some context for the scenario. The most interesting

example was how an agriculture instructor used a student's "problem" of not knowing what size of plow would best for their farming needs to create a classroom project and a felt need to learn more. This is also a great example of why it is important to know your students on an individual basis. If the teacher would have made up the scenario, it would not have been as motivating, but because they felt the need to "help" they all got involved with guidance from the teacher, and learned the content because they wanted to learn.

Here is a really neat resource that briefly mentions the 3 primary learning styles and then lists multiple scenarios and how each type of learner would handle the situation... very interesting, and applicable! 
http://www.worldwidelearn.com/education-articles/how-do-you-learn.htm

Model Unit Plan

Course: Intro to Agriculture
Unit: Horticulture and Creed Speaking 
Grade Level: 9th
Number of Students: 25
Number of class sessions: 20 days
(1wk. of Creed, 3 wks. of Horticulture)

Overall Goals...
The goals of my unit are to present to students the importance of plants in their everyday lives whether is is for food, shelter, clothing, medicine, or personal enjoyment. In addition, I have planned to set aside 5 days throughout the unit to teach the 5 paragraphs of the FFA creed in order to meet my cooperating teacher's request to teach the FFA Creed during this time frame. 

Peer Feedback:
While there was concern with mixing in the Creed Speaking with the Horticulture, to teach the FFA Creed for 5 days straight is out of the question; therefore, it was logical to weave it in among the horticulture-based lessons since it is necessary to taught during the time frame in which I will be teaching my intro. to horticulture lessons. Some other suggestions made were to change some of the action verbs I used in my unit and lesson objectives, as well as re-wording a few to have more measurable objectives. I could also put more emphasis on why the math skills that I am incorporating are important to student learning and success.

Changes to make...
I plan to re-write a few objectives for more clarity, variety, and more specific and measurable outcomes. Additionally, I need to make it clearer in my Academic Enhancement section as to how those added math, reading, writing, and science skills will benefit the students and better prepare them for career success.