Week 1 of 15: Moving to the Other Side of the Desk

#PSUAgEd23 is ready for senior year!

Well...the moment we have all been waiting for has finally arrived, my first day of senior year! The year kicked off at 8 am Monday morning with AEE 412: Methods of Teaching Agriculture. As we worked through class, I thought about how excited I am to become an agriculture educator and use my knowledge to teach my students in the spring. Good thing I have all semester to learn and grow before I actually start to start walking the walk, right? 

 

Well, senior year at Penn State is not for backyard baseball, we’re in the big leagues now! We dove right in, and I ended up teaching within 48 hours of that moment.  

 

The task at hand was to teach the members of my AEE 412 lab group how to create an origami butterfly, but the catch was that I could not touch or fold the learner’s paper in any way. When I got origami as my topic, I was not stressed too much about how I would go about teaching. I have done demonstrations before and thought that this would be similar. I went home that evening and created a simple PowerPoint presentation with pictures of how to complete the steps necessary to create the butterflies, prepared examples, and got all the materials ready. 

 

By the time it was my turn to teach my peers, I was excited. How cool is it that I get to teach my peers something? I started my presentation and all was going well, until we reached a particular paper fold that, quite frankly, I did not know how to explain well. I tried my best to explain and show the learners at the same time, but for some it was hard to see, and it was even harder to rely on my poorly explained directions. I felt defeated when I saw my students not understand what I was trying to say.  

 

I realized in this moment; I was not using my words effectively enough to provide the learners with clarity. I was giving directions such as, “Fold this corner to that corner,” instead of, “Fold the top left corner of your square to the bottom right corner of your square, then use your finger to crease the long edge all the way diagonally.”  

 

In the classroom, clarity is extremely important. It becomes even more important when you are trying to explain a concept to learners that cannot see what exactly you are doing. If I were to teach this lesson again, I would record a video of myself slowly creating the origami butterfly. That way, the learners would be able to clearly see what the step looked like, and I could play back the video if needed. I could then focus my attention on explaining the steps well instead of trying to explain and create my own butterfly at the same time. I could also focus more on helping students that need assistance, too. 

 

In the agriculture science classroom, the importance of clarity can be applied everywhere. However, this type of lesson has taught me that when I demonstrate how to do something for my students, it would be a good idea to record myself doing it first. That way, if students missed a step, need to start over, or want to try again on their own time, they have a point of reference. I also learned to be as specific as possible when explaining how to complete the steps required, because the words I choose and how I use them matter! 

 

With that being said, my first teaching experience of my senior year is complete! I am glad I was able to hit this teaching opportunity head on with my peers and I am looking forward to our other teaching opportunities as the semester progresses. 

 

Buckle up and hold on tight, this is just the beginning of a semester of professional development and personal growth! 

 

 

Thank you for your endless support, 

 

Ms. Cusate