A Week Teaching in Tennessee: A Professional Development Journey

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My teaching immersion with the Penn State GOALs program has officially come and gone! Traveling to Maryville, Tennessee over my spring break to teach was one of the most rewarding things I have ever done, and the experience gave me the opportunity to teach in a school based agriculture program for the first time ever! In this blog, I want to share the 3 biggest lessons I learned about teaching as a profession and some of the fun activities I did while in Tennessee.



Students from A day class presenting their country research project on China.





Teachers Need to be Flexible and Adaptable


Due to the nature of teaching on an A and B day schedule, I had the opportunity to teach the A day students three days of instruction, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I got to teach the B day students one day of instruction on Thursday due to a FFA trip on Tuesday. Naturally, because of this schedule, the A day students got the opportunity to go a little further with the content and complete country research projects, while the B day students did not. So how did I as the teacher maximize my instructional time for the B day students? We hit the main objectives and took our time. It was more important that the students were understanding the content, asking questions, and engaging in discussion rather than trying to rush through the content. I had to sacrifice them completing the country research project, but they got to really dive deep into global citizenship and the Sustainable Development Goals. 


In addition to this, on Friday as soon as I was about to start teaching my A day students, we had a fire drill. This took about 10 minutes away from my lesson, but I made some activities shorter and made other small adaptations throughout to make sure we got through our objectives. They got to present their country research projects and they were fantastic! Overall, over the week I learned that as a teacher, I need to be flexible and adaptable. I need to have activities in my back pocket for if there is extra time, and know what my students can do without or what can be moved to the next day if we are running short on time. It’s all about rolling with the unique situations of each day!





Our country research projects




Teaching is a Lifestyle


Any agriculture teacher will tell you that they never truly “clock out”, but throughout my week in Maryville, I experienced this first-hand. In addition to each day of teaching, almost each day we had to go somewhere after school to pick something up, drop something off, and make adjustments to our lesson plans. On Monday after school, we stopped by the Blount County Extension Office to drop things off. On Tuesday, we traveled to the Regional Floriculture CDE and did not leave the school until 5:30 pm. On Wednesday, we traveled 45 minutes to Greenback High School to pick up a few flats of strawberries for the Eagleton FFA fundraiser. In addition to this, we also went to the school on Sunday afternoon to help unload some more flats of strawberries for the fundraiser, sorted them, and waited for some of the families to come pick them up from the school. When we got home though, we also edited our lesson plans and PowerPoints for the next day. Being an agriculture teacher is a hard job that requires a passionate and dedicated person to be able to fulfill all the extra duties that come along with it.



Teaching Is Fun!


Okay, I guess this one is obvious, but it is true! Having the chance to teach the 9th graders at Eagleton College and Career Academy was a blast. We had the chance to learn about global agriculture and food security together while having fun. The students were so kind and accepting of my teaching partner Amber and I, one student even made us earrings! I had a great time while on the other side of the desk, and I am forever grateful I had the chance to go on this trip and create a foundation for my future lesson planning and teaching career. Oh yeah, and finally being referred to as Ms. C is pretty cool too.





Teaching my A day students!




Our Adventures in Tennessee


While on our teaching immersion, we also got to have our fair share of fun activities! On Saturday, March 12 we got to travel to Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg to sight see and explore. While in Pigeon Forge we went to the Lodge Cast Iron store, saw “The Island,” and experienced the “Las Vegas of the South” where we drove past Dollywood on the main strip. Then we went to Gatlinburg and went to an amazing donut shop, ate Calhoun’s BBQ, saw the Gatlinburg Skybridge, and went with Ambar to buy her first cowboy hat! As if it couldn’t get better, we also got to go on Foothills Parkway and got to see the beautiful Great Smoky Mountains! Overall it was a really fun day. 





My teaching partner Ambar and I at the beginning of Foothills Parkway.





Just One More Thing


When I applied to be a part of this program, I had no idea it would end up having the impact on me that it did. I am so grateful for USDA NIFA and the World Food Prize Foundation as well as Penn State, the University of Idaho, and the Global Teach Ag Network in all of their hard work and dedication in making this trip possible. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank our cooperating teacher, Mia Sullivan, for inviting Ambar and I into her classroom for a week and making us feel right at home during our time in Tennessee. We are grateful beyond words. Finally, I would like to thank Eagleton College and Career Academy for allowing Ambar and I to come spend an amazing week in their school! They have a great community of amazing teachers, faculty, and staff that all deserve a big thank you. If you are interested in learning more about these organizations and locations, you can find more information here:


USDA NIFA

The World Food Prize Foundation

The University of Idaho

Penn State

Global Teach Ag Network 

Eagleton College and Career Academy 




My A day students and I after an amazing week!


Thank you all for your endless support,


Ms. Cusate

















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