Making Connections and Gaining Experience: Microteaching at Greenwood High School

One of the high-impact experiences we get to engage in as part of #PSUAgEd23 a microteaching experience, where we get to enter a high school classroom and teach three days of instruction. For my microteaching experience, I got to travel to Greenwood High School in Millerstown, PA to teach in Ms. Krista Pontius' agricultural leadership classroom about advocacy.

Day 1: Tuesday

Day 1 of my mircoteaching went well, but was content heavy. I wanted the students to understand what advocacy was and why someone would want to advocate for what they care about. The students were engaged and answered my questions well. I ended up having some extra time at the end of the period, so I spend some time getting to know the students, and overall, I thought it was a good lesson.

Teaching on Day 1 at Greenwood High School

Day 2: Wednesday

Day 2 was pretty eventful. We did an activity that drove into the four step effective advocacy model (Plan, Develop, Do, Reflect) by going through stations of a scenerio. I had a few behavioral issues, as the one group had a member that was off task and the other group member was doing all the work. I used proximity at first to see if the student would refocus, but ended up intervening and walking through the stations with the group. The other group in the class did a great job working through the scenerios on their own, and the other group still had a station left when the bell rang. I was glad we did not have time left over like the day before, but now I had to adapt for the next day.

After school, Mr. Nate Moyer of #PSUAgEd22 helped me and my peers create our $15 project for another AEE class we are taking this Fall, #AEE350 Teaching Methods for Agricultural Laboratories. I made an oven rack push-pull, which costs about $1.50 in wood materials and uses a variety of equipment in the shop to help students get familiar and comfortable with using them for projects in the future.

My Oven Rack Push-Pull

Day 3: Thursday

Day 3 was about adapting and applying. The group that did not finish the last station on Day 2 finished it as the bellringer, while the group that did finish the stations completed the bellringer I had originally planned. We went over the answers to the worksheet they did as they worked through the scenerios and then we were back on track. The activity for the day was to create a newspaper article, flyer, or write a letter to an elected offical advocating for a current agricultural issue in Pennsylvania. The students did great!

My Key Takeaway

After completing my microteaching experience at Greenwood High School, Ms. Krista Pontius gave me valuble feedback for how to be more effective in my instruction. Since I only had 6 students, on my evaluation form she wrote each of the student's names and tallied how many times I called on each student. The first day, I had called on every student multiple times, but there was one student that I only called on once, because they only raised their hand once. The next day, I intentionally called on that student more than once because I knew they had points to add that were valuable to the class, I just needed to engage with them more. That second day, the tallies between all 6 students were a lot more even. I think when working with smaller class sizes, this is really important. Sometimes as teachers we do not even realize when we have not heard from a student in a while, and getting them to engage in the content can really change the dynamic of the group.

I would like to extend a sincere thank you to all the folks at Greenwood High School, including Ms. Krista Pontius, Mr. Micheal Clark, and Mr. Nathan Moyer. I had a great time throughout my microteaching experience and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to work alongside some of the best educators! Thank you again. 

Thank you for your endless support,

Ms. Cusate