Cultivating Curiosity with Ms. Cusate

Earlier this week, six Albion FFA members had the opportunity to travel to the Pennsylvania FFA State Legislative Leadership Conference (SLLC) in Harrisburg, PA. There were approximately 630 other FFA members in attendance from across the state. During the three-day event, students learned about professionalism, developed interpersonal skills, and made friends along the way. On night one, students were split into groups to attend workshops about how to advocate for the agriculture industry and communicate effectively. They learned how to start conversations and proper table etiquette. Day two brought more excitement. Students were separated into two groups to emulate the minority and minority Caucasus and deliberated on different House Bills that are currently going through the Pennsylvania Senate. Then, both groups came together to discuss in the form of a mock trial, defending their stance and point of view. They were given a binder at the beginning of the conference with different ...

For my second SAE visit, I had the chance to visit Andy's SAE. Andy is a sophomore at Northwestern Senior High School who is currently serving as the Albion FFA Junior Treasurer. He is active within the agriculture education program and the FFA chapter, and always has a "can do" attitude towards all his assignments and officer tasks. Before visiting Andy, Mr. Honeycutt and I talked to him about a date and time that would work for him and his family so that we could come visit. Andy talks about his pigs in class often, so I knew he would be happy we took the time to come see his project. Andy's pigs are an entrepreneurship/ownership SAE where he is raising two pigs. He got the pigs when they were three months old. He has plans to butcher one of the pigs and use the money from the first pig to pay to have the second pig butchered as well. During our visit, we met with Andy's family members and they discussed the progress Andy has been making with his pigs and the tr...

A student’s Supervised Agriculture Experience or SAE is a critical component of the three circle model for agricultural education. Supervised Agriculture Experiences are work-based learning experiences which allow students to gain hands-on experience while building upon knowledge gained in the classroom. Students in their first year of school-based agricultural education classes can start a Foundational SAE before committing to multiple years in an agriculture program, and transition their Foundational SAE into what is called an Immersion SAE. The difference between a Foundational SAE and an Immersion SAE is the scope and complexity involved in record keeping in effort towards earning FFA degrees and overall focus on one particular area of interest.   The SAE Roadmap describing the different SAE paths a student can chose from At Northwestern Senior High School, SAEs are graded on a “Pass/Fail” basis. All students must have a minimum of 180 hours logged into the Agricultural Experi...

The time has finally come for my final presentation, where I answer 3 essential questions before heading out to complete my student teaching internship: Who do I aspire to be as an educator? What opportunities have I engaged in to become a better educator? How am I prepared to maximize my student teaching internship in the Spring? It feels surreal to lay it all out on the table after 3.5 years of hard work and dedication. Thank you to everyone that was supported me throughout this journey! See you soon, Northwestern Senior High School! You can check out my final presentation here: Thank you for your endless support, Ms. Cusate

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 scen...

Last Friday was nothing short of amazing as I taught at my Cooperating Center for the first time! For #AEE412, the members of #PSUAgEd23 were assigned to teach a Life Knowledge lesson in their cooperating centers.  When I was perusing the Life Knowledge lessons on the National FFA website, I could not find a lesson that I thought would really let me connect with my Agricultural Leadership class the way I wanted to, so I put my own twist on one of the lessons about finding your leadership style. For my lesson, I had planned to have the students in the Agricultural Leadership class, the Albion FFA officer team, take the Myers-Briggs personality test. Then, we were going to see how our personalities contribute to the overall success of the team, especially during our chapter’s most prominent events, such as the Lake Erie Maple Expo that began on Friday.  Helping a student with the FFA Creed in 2nd Period! I thought the lesson was great! It had the potential to be effective and me...

  Last Friday, #PSUAgEd23 had the pleasure of attending the 2022 PA Agriscience Inquiry Institute presented by master teacher Ms. Krista Pontius! We had the opportunity to explore inquiry-based methods of instruction and activities to implement during our student teaching experience.    There was so much learning and excitement packed into our 10 hours together! Our cohort of 12 pre-service teacher candidates had the opportunity to work with 12 agriculture teachers from all around Pennsylvania. I really enjoyed getting to meet new teachers and catch up with some familiar faces. However, the best thing about being paired with an established agriculture teacher was hearing all their ideas about the ways they would implement and change the methods and ideas we were presented to their classrooms. It helped to hear how some of the activities could be connected to other content areas and how we could take it one step further to maximize student learning and engagement.  ...