The unexpected... first week teaching

 Monday: 

Monday morning as I’m walking out the door to head to Dover, I get a phone call from my CT Ms. Marsh. I missed the first call because I was finishing getting ready when I looked at my phone, I thought it was weird that she called me. Usually, she will only call me or text in the morning if we are having a snow day, I looked outside and it's not snowing... I called back and then she explained that she had tested positive for covid that morning! My heart dropped and panic began. 

 

The whole drive to school that morning I was freaking out because this was my first week taking over 1 class of hers and now, I was supposed to take over all of them, which I didn’t have lessons planed for. Once I calmed down, I realized that all I had to do was get through today Monday since luckily, it's the start of a new semester and it's all class introduction things. I would worry about everything else later. 

 

During Monday the CTE director came down got me keys to the classroom and the rest of the building so that I could get in without Ms. Marsh. He also kept me updated on when she would be allowed to come back, and if I needed anything to let him know. Thankfully Dover is a multi-teacher program because Mrs. Barzydlo helped me out so much as well as Mr.Bowen.Each of them would stay after school or check in each day to make sure that I was prepared for the rest of the week

 

Anyways I got through Monday and had a great time introducing the different classes to my students and getting to know all of them. Each of my classes are filled with great students and I didn’t have any issues the rest of the week behavioral wise, Thank God! 

 

Tuesday: 

 

Ag mechanics-

The first “real” day of school for me by starting content instruction. After moving around some of my lessons so that I could use content that I had already prepared I started off with my intro to Ag mechanic’s class. We started off with hand tool ID one of the previous lessons that I had prepared. We all traveled down to the shop and start with a hand tool ID pre-test to see what all my students know already. Then we created a flip book with pictures of the tools and their names so that students can carry it with them if they don’t know what tool they need. (I don’t want a student coming up and asking where the tool that does the thing to the bolts that kind of twists, you know that thing right?) 

 

The most challenging part of this day was learning that one of my students does not know how to read or write, also they do not have an aid with them to help. So, I was trying my best to split my time between helping them Id the tools while watching the rest of the class and answering Questions.

 

If anyone has any helpful tips of how to help and manage students that really need an Aid or someone to assist them through the class when one can’t be provided, I would love some suggestions! I really want this student to be able be able to succeed especially when I’m not always there to assist. 

 

Animal science- 

 

We started off with terminology, I was teaching off of Ms. Marsh’s lesson plan. I really surprised myself with how much I remembered from my 201-animal science class that I had at Penn State in relation to terminology. We watched all the birthing videos of each species which was hilarious to watch my students’ reactions to each process! They were so disgusted when they learned that it's very common for mammals to defecate during this because it relates to the correct way to push. I’m sure that I freaked out the sub that was watching as the certified teacher that day as well. 

 

Plant science-

 

This class was the easiest for me to teach throughout the week since it was the one, I was supposed to pick up and continue teaching the next couple of weeks. We started with the roots and continued to work out way up through the plant each day over the course of the past week. Something that I learned is that PowerPoint gets really boring after a while (even I get bored of it). I’ve been trying to incorporate games and activities as much as I can so that students can actively learn the information while staying engaged and having fun. One activity that I tried was gimkit I used this in my animal science class as well to learn terminology. It's basically like kahoot but the students can interfere with other players by freezing their screen or blurring out their words which gives them a chance to get ahead in points. I found this to be a very effective way for them to get use to terminology because the questions constantly repeat until they earn enough points so, the students are being exposed to the content multiple times. With some feedback all the students said that playing this game helped them remember the terms and the more they played the more questions they were getting correct. 

 

Wednesday through Friday: 

 

I’m not going to give an overview of what I did each day but here are some high lights in each class throughout the week. 

 

Ag mechanics- 

My students continued with tool ID including hand tools and power tools. They also started the intro to OSHA certification luckily Mr. Bowen was there to teach that because you need a certified OSHA instructor. Then we finished up the week with some safe situation stations. The goal of the safe situation stations was to get students to realize that accidents can happen and the best way to avoid them is to practice safety. Each station had a situation that could happen in the shop with some exaggeration added in. 

The hardest part of this class is having such a large number of students and with all of them being males expect for 2 females. They are well...a little rambunctious which personally is worrying because I didn’t have Ms. Marsh there as an expert in the Dover shop, as well as just having someone else that would step in if something were to happen.  I don’t want my students to get hurt especially before we start even working on projects by messing around with a tool before they know how to use it. This was something that I was trying to figure out this whole week as to how can I watch 26 students all at the same time when I can’t see the whole shop at once? Of course, we have set expectations and rules when we go into the shop but that doesn’t always stop students from getting a little too curious about the machines.  

 

Animal science- 

We continued with terminology then started with the scientific process as they will begin to start a lab next week. This class went very well, although the one thing that I learned is that I get through what Ms. Marsh planned for this class way faster than what she normally would take. I found myself getting done with what would take her a whole class period in about 40 minutes of the class, I have 90-minute blocks for each class. Thankfully I was able to prepare some extra material for each day such as the review games and giving them extra worksheets or activities to go through. One awesome thing that we did was when learning the scientific method, I told them it's super important to write good instructions for when other people and yourself are trying to replicate your experiment multiple times. Of course, they were like “ya we get it” but I had them do an activity where they write out the steps of how to make an PB & J sandwich. Then they read them to me as I followed their directions and made their sandwich, as you can imagine none of them were good sandwiches. Each time they realized that they completely missed a step or wasn’t specific enough and their sand which took a turn, they wanted to revise their instructions.  At the end we finally made a decent sandwich and the students realized how important it is to write good instructions for your experiment. 

 

Plant science- 

 

since I had my lessons prepared for this class, I was able to do a little more involved labs compared to my other two classes. Every day we did some type of lab or activity, we saw xylem and phloem cells, made 3D flower models with all the parts, and solved a murder mystery by preforming a flower dissection to see what flower killed “Wyatt grizzly”.  One thing that I learned is that setting up for labs and making sure that all the supplies is out and ready is a lot of work (especially when it's your first week and have to search through all the cabinets to find what you’re looking for). Also, these labs worked best when students had a worksheet to follow along with and answer questions. This allowed them to not get lost in what they were supposed to be doing and also avoid them having to ask what to do next. The best comment I hear from a student in this class was “wow I didn’t know plants were actually cool, I thought they were boring compared to animals”. That my goal because plant science is what I personally enjoy especially when it comes time to plant, it gives me hope that my students are enjoying what we have done so far and are learning in the process! 

 

 

The end! 

 

This is a way longer blog then I normally write but so much happened this week. I felt all the emotions that teachers feel I’m sure in the span of 5 days from stress, nervousness, happiness, emotional, and lastly relief. At the end of the week, I can say that all the students are ok and I know that they absorbed some content knowledge! Also, I’ve came out of this week feeling more confident knowing that I am able to teach a full class load by myself. I’ve also been able to reflect on what happened during the week and point out where I need to improve with my instruction and planning. 

 

With all that being said I had an amazing week when it all ended but I am ready for some much-needed sleep and for Ms. Marsh to come back!

 

Ps. Huge shout out to all the teachers at Dover that helped me navigate the school and check in on me throughout the week. As well to Mrs.Barzydlo and Mr. Bowen for being available each day to make sure I was set up and ready to go.