New School Year Resolutions
Amanda Ramos, Montezuma Cortez High School, Colorado, and Carmelita Goossen, Southwestern Heights High School, Kansas
As the first few weeks of a new school year came to an end, Amanda Ramos, a second-year teacher in Colorado, and Carmelita Goossen, a fourth-year teacher from Kansas, took a moment to discuss with us their resolutions and goals for this year.
"A lot has changed this year. We've gone to a four-day week and an alternating block schedule," Ramos said.
As things continue to change in education, there is one thing for sure – there are a lot of advantages and opportunities at the start of a new school year. Whether you chose to become an ag teacher because of a great influence from your own high school days or because of a deep passion for agriculture, the mission from year to year is the same. As Goossen states, "My mission is to help students recognize how agriculture influences everyone's lives worldwide every day."
Ramos and Goossen accomplish this goal through teaching a variety of courses as well as supervising agricultural experiences, and they are both highly involved in their FFA chapters. Spare time for an agriculture teacher is precious, so setting their goals at the beginning of the year helps them stay focused all year long.
"My goal for this year is to focus on student engagement," Goossen said. "I hold high expectations for myself because everything that a teacher does is on purpose." She hopes to achieve her goal by creating a positive-attitude work environment that facilitates learning.
I think other skills that have increased in importance over the years include flexibility and adaptability, relationship building, ability to lead others and build effective teams, willingness to learn new things, understanding other cultures, planning and organizing, and being creative. Today's business world changes quickly, and the ability to adapt, build relationships, learn new things and be creative is essential to success.
With the variety of courses Ramos teaches, she is kept on her toes to come up with new ways to incorporate e-Moments and LifeKnowledge precepts into her technical content – but she credits her experience at the Tarleton Delta Conference with increasing her knowledge of the leadership resources available. "I'm pretty familiar with LifeKnowledge. I heard of it before I got to Delta this year," Ramos said. "I had used e-Moments quite a bit but hadn't worked to incorporate the precepts into my lessons until this year."
Goossen uses LifeKnowledge to help with one of her biggest struggles: lesson planning. "I have found LifeKnowledge to be a very useful tool to help teach life lessons throughout my curriculum." She admits that the most difficult thing about starting a new school year is breaking old habits. "My worst habit is leaving lesson planning as the last thing on my to-do list. There is no question that as agriculture educators and FFA advisors, we wear many hats. But we can't let extra responsibilities cause us to lose sight of our true purpose – educating students," Goossen said.
As a young teacher, Ramos is oozing with enthusiasm and energy. "I haven't been around long enough to be burned out or frustrated, or to the point that it isn't fun anymore. I am definitely open-minded and willing to try to new things." Among these "new things" are specific goals. Ramos says her goals have become much more narrow and specific. "When I first started teaching, my goal was to survive! Now that I know more of what it takes, I have set more specific goals about using what I learned at Delta in the classroom every day."
The goals she has set for herself this year include:
1. To improve my directions and to make sure that I am giving great effective directions every single day.a
2. To incorporate one LK precept into every lesson.
3. To use at least one e-Moment a week.
On top of her personal goals, Ramos has also established goals for the program. "If you are in a multiple-teacher program, setting goals together is helpful. It helps us to stay accountable. My advice is to always write them [goals] down. Almost everybody sets goals, but writing them down makes them more concrete."
Her goals for the program are:
1. To market the program to the community.
2. To improve our advisory committee (it has been inactive the last couple of years).
Ramos and her teaching partner worked together through the National Quality Program Standards and discovered that these two areas were where they received their lowest scores.
Ramos and Goossen know that their students will benefit from these new school year resolutions. "I think the retention rate of the information will be so much higher, and I think my goals will help with classroom management as well as keeping them on task more of the time," Ramos said.
Reflecting on the goals she has set, Goossen says, "If I can accomplish all of my goals, my students will benefit because they will know that they are not learning by accident, but that everything they do is on purpose."
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Q & A with Mike Wallace, San Antonio, Texas
Q-LK: Mike, what school do you teach at and how many years have you been teaching?
A-MW: I teach in the North East Independent School District Agriscience Magnet Program at James Madison High School in San Antonio, Texas. This is my 10th year in teaching.
Q-LK: What do you teach?
A-MW: Because we are such a large program, I have the opportunity to specialize in the courses I teach. This fall, I am teaching six sections of animal science. In the spring, I will teach five sections of advanced animal science and one section of equine science.
Q-LK:How familiar are you with LifeKnowledge?
A-MW: This is my first year familiarizing myself with LifeKnowledge. I am attempting to include one aspect of the LifeKnowledge materials in each class period this school
Q-LK: Why did you become an agriculture educator?
A-MW: I was blessed with the opportunity to participate in a very active and outstanding FFA chapter as a youth. Having agricultural science instructors who served as my role models and who helped shape me into who I am today naturally led me to have a desire to share that same experience with others.
Q-LK: What is the most difficult thing about starting a new school year?
A-MW: For me, the most difficult part of beginning a new school year is simply being as ready and organized as I need to be. There are so many things happening in the FFA chapter at the beginning of the year that it is easy to get overwhelmed if you are not organized and on task.
Q-LK: What are the advantages and disadvantages to being an experienced teacher?
A-MW: As a somewhat experienced teacher, hopefully I have learned over my 10 years of teaching what works and what doesn't work. I have a pretty good idea of what I will have to do in order to get the school year get off to a successful beginning. This experience definitely helps to take much of the stress out of preparing for the new school year. The biggest disadvantage for me is falling into the trap of continuing to do things "the same old way." Even though I may know that I should change the way I do something in order to maximize student success, it is often very difficult to change old habits!
Q-LK: How have your goals and expectations for yourself changed from your first year of teaching?
A-MW: As a new teacher, I was extremely enthusiastic at the beginning of each school year about training teams for contests and assisting students with SAE projects. As I have grown older, I still enjoy training teams and assisting with SAE projects, but I have become much more concerned with providing a balanced approach to the entire teaching process. Also, as my family at home has expanded, I have learned to make appropriate choices that enable me to provide opportunities for my students but also allow me to have more quality time with my family.
Q-LK: As this school year begins, what goals or new resolutions do you have?
A-MW:
- Serving my family, community and school as the best Christian role model I can possibly be is my ultimate goal. I have a long way to go, but continuing to strive for this is my way of improving on a daily basis.
- I hope to make my classroom as relevant and rigorous as I possibly can for my students this school year. As an FFA advisor, I hope to continue many of the successes we have had in past years. I hope to use LDE, CDE and SAE opportunities to engage as many of our students as possible in exposing them to today's world of agriculture.
Q-LK:
How will you or your students benefit from your accomplishing these goals or resolutions?
A-MW: I have found the more successful a student is in the agriculture classroom and through FFA activities almost always directly results in a more successful student school-wide and post-graduation. That may sound boastful, but I truly believe this to be fact. As long as we are making sure our programs are helping students grow and succeed overall and we are not allowing our activities to detract from other important aspects of their lives, I believe our programs will always be seen as a valuable part of a successful school and community.
Q-LK: What other advice do you have about starting a new school year?
A-MW:
I try not to give advice in areas where I am still attempting to make improvements myself, but what I recommend is:
- Set lofty goals.
- Do not let others tell you what you can or cannot accomplish.
- Do not let things that really aren't that important get in the way of those that are.
- Do not let yourself down by giving up on the things that are important to you.
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Featured Technical Lesson: Job Application
By Cory Epler, currently a graduate student at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Take a look at how Cory Epler, currently a graduate student at Virginia Tech, incorporates differentiated instruction and cooperative learning in a lesson he uses to introduce food science to eighth-graders.
Lesson Here --- Supplemental Power Point
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Top 7 New School Year Resolutions
The staff at the LifeKnowledge Center for Agricultural Education put their heads together and came up with this year's top 7 list for new school year resolutions.
- Give Praise -Everyone likes to be complimented. Be intentional in praising your students. Plan to give praise to a specific number of people each day and stick to it!
- Set Feedback Deadlines – Set standards for yourself in grading papers and assignments.
- Be Physically Prepared – Make sure any copies you need for your next class are printed, supplies taken out of the closet, etc. Be able to spend your lunch eating lunch.
- Contact Parents – Building a sense of community is key for your program. Start the flow of communication early in the year. Contact parents to praise students and inform them of improvements.
- Keep Website Updated – If you have a website for your classes or program, keep it up-to-date. We all run out of time…but if your website contains incorrect or outdated information, it benefits no one and may make you look unorganized.
- Get the Community Involved – There is a vast wealth of knowledge and experience in your community. Get members of your community involved in activities such as coaching teams or as guest speakers in your classroom, and their involvement may produce unexpected results.
- Provide Leadership Experiences – Resolve to provide purposeful leadership experiences for every student in your classroom, even those not involved in FFA.
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Teaching Tips
Tips from Quantum Teaching. In this article, we will discover two great ideas from the book Quantum Teaching that can prep your mind for great success this year.
The following are excerpts from the book Quantum Teaching: Orchestrating Student Success by Bobbi DePorter, Mark Reardon and Sarah Singer-Nourie (Allyn & Bacon, 1998), pages 19–20 and 29.
The Hidden Power of Intention
A teacher's intention, or belief, about a student's ability and motivation speaks loud and clear. Think back to the last time you taught. How did your intention (positive or negative) come through? Did you believe and act as if students wanted to be their best – that they can succeed, want to succeed and will succeed? Did you see through the image students project, and tap into what you know waits inside their best selves? Did you interact with students while maintaining a positive intention about who they are and what they can be - and watch them rise to your expectations? All of these are evidence of your intention. And they count for as much or more than anything you say.
The dilemma occurs because our students in the process of getting to a place called "I know!" spend most of their time in a different place, called: learning.
In working with many teachers at different levels, we've noticed an interesting yet troubling pattern in their interactions with students in "high ability" groups versus "low ability" groups. With the high ability groups, teachers tend to smile more, engage at a more personal and conversational level, and speak in a more intellectual and humorous manner, using complex vocabulary and acting more maturely. With the "low ability" groups, the same teachers tend to speak lauder and slower (as if the students can't hear), use basic vocabulary and immature syntax, smile less, and interact at a more instructional, authoritarian level. In essence, the teachers treat the students just as their labels dictate – as high or low academic performers.
Nine out of 10 teachers say they can recall many times when they prejudged a student's failure based on his or her past behavior, and the result they got matched their expectations. Does the teacher's intention have an impact on the student's performance and self-image? Absolutely!
Acknowledge Every Effort
Everyone likes to be acknowledged. Receiving acknowledgement fills us with pride, self-confidence and happiness. Research supports the concept of student efficacy increasing due to teacher acknowledgement.
To achieve the best results with students, acknowledge every effort, not just the correct effort. As teachers, we spend much of our acknowledgement on correctness rather than personal learning. Why? Because as teachers, we devote much of our time to a place called "knowing." We know what we know. We know our content, we know what our students know, what they should know and what they will know. We get paid to know. Consequently, what do we acknowledge in our learners? What they know.
The dilemma occurs because our students in the process of getting to a place called "I know!" spend most of their time in a different place, called: learning. Learning is a fluid, dynamic, risky and exciting place. There is no knowing yet. Mistakes, creativity, potential, and wonder fill this place.
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Sponsor Remarks
A special thank-you to all of our Founding and Supporting Partners for their continued support of the LifeKnowledge Center for Agricultural Education. Your generous support provides resources and support to educators around the country.
LK asks Andy Armbruster of Monsanto:
LK- Q: Why did Monsanto originally become involved in the development and support of LifeKnowledge Center for Agricultural Education?
Monsanto- A: What’s unique about LK, when properly used and delivered, is that it’s integrated into the classroom. To us, that means we’re helping more students connect to leadership than we typically might by simply sponsoring a conference or an event. We also like LK because it provides true professional development for agriculture educators. LK has the potential to help teachers become stronger and better at their profession.
What's New?
LK At Work Readership Survey
As the new school year begins, we want to know what you are thinking! Help us provide a useful newsletter by filling out a brief survey. By completing the survey, you will have a chance to win a LifeKnowledge Prize Pack full of resources for your classroom, valued at more than $250. Tell us what you link about our e-newsletter
LifeKnowledge University
LifeKnowledge Webinars: Quality, Convenient and Cost-Efficient
Where else can you find top-notch information regarding premier leadership, personal growth and career success? You can find it in your office, in the classroom or at home – and you don’t need a credit card!
That’s right! LifeKnowledge University Webinars – keeping you connected at your convenience – are available to you for free. All you need is access to a phone and the Internet.
Better yet, you can earn one Continuing Education Unit (CEU) for each LK Webinar that you complete.
LifeKnowledge Webinars are offered the second Tuesday of each month through the end of the year. To register, visit the LifeKnowledge page in the Educators section of ffa.org.
Convention-
Visit the LifeKnowledge booth in Teachers' World at the National FFA Convention, October 21-23, 2009. Launching at convention will be a new Career Success Module and Chapter Leadership Guide with in LifeKnowledge Online! Stop by the LifeKnowledge booth for a sneak preview. Find out how to get your free copy of
Leadership on the Go!
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