AEE 412 Weekly Writing: Taking Content to a Higher Level of Thinking

In the text, Myers discusses how classroom content is put to reality by utilizes field trips. Field trips are successful when the logistics behind the field trip are well planned and appropriate instruction is provided prior to the trip. I feel it is timely but most effective to really time take to plan and formulate the trip in good plans. Myers refers to making sure the trip takes place in good sequence to make the information learned in the classroom make sense. I found it interesting how it was stated that students should be as familiar or exposed to the trip location through media for pictures as much as possible to reduce anxiety. I never thought about the added stress from a different learning environment effecting the students exposure.

Groseta discusses how a higher level of thinking is explained when the student needs to use the information for a purpose. A purpose such as, teaching another student or discovering the information and then having to explain it. I feel by working with the material in a different way than just hearing it more information is retained. The regurgitation and repetition of information makes a more impactful use of knowledge. A great way to incorporate this in the classroom is through cooperative learning in groups. The group dynamic brings a variety of backgrounds and approaches to the knowledge. Information is processed and looked at differently with new prospective. However, with group work complications can arise. Making groups smaller will help reduce these issues. I feel it is also important to state that the cooperative learning is also related to the hands on visual approach gained from field trips.

Questioning students during a lesson also helps to process information and reach those higher levels of thinking. Teachers can quickly facilitate questions to the students as a whole or individually. Not only does this keep students on their toes and thinking but also evaluates where they are at. Questions can be lower levels of thinking or higher. Depending on how the question is formulated a student may need to think more or less. I feel the level of question depends on how much knowledge the student has prior and where they are at with the lesson. With questioning it is important Dyer says not to move to quickly. It takes a student three seconds to comprehend a question but a teacher should not wait more than seven seconds for a student to start to answer.

AEE 412 Lab 2: Reflection

My lab this week was on an interest approach or anticipatory set. I elected to create mine for a floriculture class introducing oasis. First off I had a hard time finding an interesting and capturing approach. My desperate search lead me to the Georgia Agriculture Education teachers site- AKA my best friend! The site has tons of awesome ideas to use for a variety of subjects. I ended up finding an entire page devoted to unique interest approaches.

Things I liked about the one I chose was that it was used with materials that you would have at a school and requires minimum prep. It also can be very flexible in how you actually present it.

I felt like my presentation went well. The behavior issues I had in the previous lab were minimized as the students were much more engaged and interest. I tried it facilitate questions for the students to guess what I was using. A student immediately guessed what my mysterious material was, which halted my guiding questions for the students to think about what it was. Next time, if a student knows an answer right away, I will ask them to help explain more of how the material works for the benefit of the other students.

AEE Reflection #2

Utilizing the principles of teaching allow for higher levels of thinking from students.

Provide Clarity. Students are able to take more away from a lesson when it is structured with meaning and logical sequencing. The teacher should take into consideration how a lesson is provided to the students. If they are obviously not understanding the material it should be presented in an alternate format. Teacher preparation also has a lot to do with how clear the information is presented. By providing students with a course sequence of all of the courses offered in the department they will be better prepared for the level of knowledge in the current class says Newcomb. I think highly of the fact that personal motivation and interest are incorporated in the principles of learning. Those are direct drivers of how much a student gets out of a particular lesson. This is also why it is important to keep students directly engaged in learning, however the engagement should be challenging to maintain interest. Going along with interests, practicality and transferable skills add in learning retention and provide the foundation for future skills. My opinion of these principles that when combined they target direct student motivation. While it is challenging to incorporate so much into each lesson they incubuses all factors that make up a great learning atmosphere. The one principle area I do partially disagree with is the disciplinary factor. I feel that if students are engaged and motivated this factor is minimized. However with that being said, discipline needs to be addressed right away to prevent hindering the learning environment.

To maximize a teachers time and classroom effiency, teaching must be adapted for groups but individualized and diverse enough to assist each student. When teaching to an entire class it is important to keep practicies varied and utilizing all senses. I feel and understand that each student learns differently, as well as that being subject dependent. For example, I can understand animal science information by either simply hearing a lecture or reading a passage, however when it comes to mechanics, I learn best by hands on experiance.

Lecture needs to be consice and clear as stated in the principles of learning. Class discussion and teacher questioning will allow the teacher to see what information the students are taking in and understanding as well as providing additional clairity. The manner of discussion and size of participating group should be dependent on content and depth.

A teacher may target other students learning needs through demonstrations and field trips. These are both more complicated to plan and require more time, they can be the most beneficial to some students.

The role playing scenario I find is very interesting yet more challenging. My personal feelings are that the students participating need to have a good understanding of what they are doing as well as a good attitude towards the activity. This strategies' outcome is probably dependent on the comfort of the class with each other and their understanding of content.

I feel overall that the teaching techniques a teacher utilizes in the classroom are very dependent on his or her personal conformance. A vast variety of resources are available to assist students and teachers in the learning process.

AEE 412 Lab 1 Reflection: First Day of School

Our first lab was an interesting to prepare for as we also work on developing curriculum for the semester. I felt it was challenging to only present ten minutes off the lesson because prior activities help build up to the main point as well as set the attitude towards the information. I didn't present my interest approach but I think I would opt to change it to better set the mindset of the students for the year as well as to set the expectations for the class.

I felt it was challenging to address negative behaviors in all of the labs I watched because all of the class members were so persistent in their identified behaviors. With that being said, now that we have an idea of the class behaviors it will provide more opportunity to better fit the needs of the class. The biggest obstacle in my lecture lab is talking. To prevent this in the future my plan is to rearrange seating so those students are sitting closer to me. I also need to make sure in my lesson students are immediately engaged in the material.

Overall I think my lesson went well. I was able to cover the material like planned. My hope is future lessons go smoother as we become adapted to how we want to present and classroom management.

Accomplishing tasks via Learning Objectives- AEE Writing

Good Afternoon!
Let me start out by posing you a question, Without your 'to do' list, how do you know what to accomplish? You are possibly thinking about the many things that you have to do, but can you easily put emphasis or priority on them? By creating your to do list you are able to provide clarity and organization to the tasks at hand.

This is a similar analogy to developing learning objectives in the classroom. At the beginning of each class announcing the days objectives to the students puts them in the mindset of what they will be learning. They will have an idea of what to focus their learning on and what to pay particular attention to. M. Susie Whittington gives advice on developing learning objectives in relationship to Bloom's Taxonomy by utilizing action verbs to help students hone in on what they should learn. Whittington states that verbs categorized under the following categories also are equivalent to the Bloom's Taxonomy of learning. Remember in relation to Blooms' Knowledge, Processing is equivalent to Comprehension, Application to Analysis, Creating equivalent to Synthesis and Evaluating to Evaluation. The action words let a student know exactly what they should take and be able to do from each lesson.

In the text, Methods of Teaching Agriculture, it is discussed that posting lesson objectives also allows a teacher to determine the best timeline for students to learn things or do activities. It is also recommended that after the objectives are stated to do an interest approach with the students. This will allow for the students to become engaged in the subject in a non traditional lesson to captivate and gain their attention. This can be done in a variety of ways or as a bell work to start the class.