Continuing the Cooperating Center Search

 Hi everyone! I’m back with an update on my search for a cooperating center. While “speed dating” potential cooperating centers, I was able to visit five schools, each of which had many unique qualities that made up a strong agriculture program and showed great potential for my student teaching experience. While I will not be sharing which schools were my favorite in this blog post, I do hope to highlight one quality from each school that really stood out to me. 

The first school that I was able to visit was Derry Area High School. Derry had a lot of great facilities and a very strong FFA program. For me, the highlight of the Derry agricultural program was the variety of facilities that they had available to help their students learn. This included a food science lab, a floral lab, two greenhouses, and so much more. I really loved how Derry could offer students so many hands on learning opportunities. 

The next school that I was able to visit was Greenwood Area High School. I was drawn to visit Greenwood because I knew that they had a very strong FFA program. While I was visiting the school, I got to see various ways that this three teacher program was able to incorporate the knowledge that they were teaching in the classroom to content that related to FFA activities such as CDEs and LDEs. I really enjoyed seeing how Greenwood incorporated the three circle model into their agriculture program. 

The third program that I was able to visit was Salisbury Elk-Lick High School. During my visit, I was able to accompany Mrs. Shafer and her students on some industry tours throughout the area. This allowed me to see just how strong the ties were that this program has with the surrounding communities. It was great to see students so interested in this experience and to see them connect what they were seeing in the workplace to content that they had learned within the classroom. When I have my own program, I hope that I am also able to create these strong ties within the community. 

The fourth program that I had the opportunity to visit was Biglerville High School. The thing that stood out to me the most during my visit to Biglerville was the variety of real-life learning experiences that they were able to offer student. They had various projects going on such as trout in the classroom, raising rabbits, and the construction of a brand-new greenhouse. Each of the students had roles within these projects such as feeding the rabbits or making sure that their cages were clean. I really enjoyed the opportunities offered to students and the responsibilities that students had along with them. 

The final program I was able to visit was Lampeter-Strasburg High School. One thing that I found very interesting about Lampeter-Strasburg was the block schedule that they ran on. This means that each class that they taught essentially ran for two class periods. I really liked this schedule because it allowed students to have more time to participate in learning activities. This gave students plenty of time to work on hands on project in the shop and greenhouse without having to worry about running out of time to clean up their area. Having this much time with students can allow them to get more hands-on experience then what other programs could offer. 

Although I was only able to visit five programs during my search for a cooperating center, I am sure that there are many other programs throughout the state that demonstrate many of the qualities that I have mentioned above. Overall, I loved each school that I had the opportunity to visit, and would be more very excited to student teach at any one of them.