Teaching Isn't Always Beautiful Butterflies - Reflective Teaching Lessons in AEE412

Our "First Day of School" Picture!

It's senior year!! I would love to say that is my last first day of school, however, as I future educator, I know that I have many many more first days ahead of me! As I look to the rest of my time at Penn State, I know that there will be many times that I am asked to reflect on the highly impactful experiences that we participate in. I invite you all to check back to my blog and social media pages regularly for these reflections and to learn more about the experiences and challenges I am undergoing as a prepare for student teaching next spring. With that, let's up right into senior year!

The first experience I want to reflect on is from a class called AEE412: Methods of Teaching Agriculture. 

What happened in 412 this week?

On Monday, I walked into my first class of my senior year! Like most college courses, we started with reviewing expectations for the course and a brief overview of what we can expect throughout the semester.  However, in most other college courses the first day is filled with things that we are going to do later in the semester and we can often just mark them in our calendar and come back to these tasks at a later date. In AEE412, there was no waiting and we jumped into our work right away!

My peers and I with our origami butterflies! 

Our first assignment was to pick a lesson at random and be prepared to teach it in just 48 hours at our AEE412 lab. My particular assignment was named "The Origami Task" and it required me to demonstrate to my peers how to create an origami butterfly, and then task my peers with creating their own butterflies. With our assignment in hand, we each went our separate ways and began preparing our lessons of Wednesday's lab. 

When it came time to teach my lesson, I felt fairly confident. I had done demonstrations in the past, had practiced the lesson at home, and felt confident that I could explain to my peers how to make these origami butterflies. However, when I started my lesson, I very quickly realized that some of what I was saying only made sense in my head (don't you hate when that happens?). So, I was going throughout my lesson, I had to make sure that I was slowing down, being very clear and concise in my instructions. Overall, the peers in my group did fairly well with their butterflies, and 2/3 of the group was able to create their butterfly without any help or need for additional direction!

How does this relate to what I know about teaching and learning?

When I first picked my Reflective Teaching Lesson, I was very confused. What does making origami butterflies have to do with Agriculture Education? However, as I began to work through the lesson and decide how I would teach this to a group of my peers, it became very evident that this exercise wasn't about the butterflies, it was about giving our students the best instructions possible, and being able to reflect on a lesson when we were done teaching it so that we could do it better next time. 

It also connects to the characteristics that make up an effective teacher. For example, in lab we discussed the importance of being engaging and passionate in order to be an effective teacher. After walking away from the lesson, I can say that I was not exactly passionate about origami. I now wonder, how would the outcome of my lesson been different if I was more engaging and passionate about the topic? Would that have increased learner success? 

What did I learn from this experience?

This experience helped me realize that is not always going to result in beautiful butterflies. Sometimes our lessons lack clarity, or we realize that we are moving at a pace much too fast for our learners to understand. However, it is times like this that we can't feel defeated or like we are a bad teacher, we simply just need to reflect on what happened and use that reflection to assist us in doing better next time. 

For example, many of my peers gave me feedback that I should have provided a brief overview at the end of my slideshow that put all the steps together to make the material easier to understand and replicate. I now know that in the future I need to provide time in my lesson for students to review what we have learned as a 'big picture' so they can see how the lesson fits together as a whole. 

How can I apply this as an Agriscience teacher?

While I may not be making origami butterflies in my classroom, I will definitely be instructing students through some fairly complex tasks and hands-on learning experiences. It highlights the important of clarity in teaching and making sure that students are understanding the instructions that are given before you move onto the next step. This assignment helped me realize how important it is that I reflect on my teaching strategies and habits in order to continue growing into an effective teacher.

I was so glad to be able to kick off the semester with an assignment that got me into the mindset of a teacher and I cannot wait to see how I learn and grow throughout the rest of this semester!