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Feature Stories
Teaching Comes First!
Technology in the Classroom: Sometimes it’s OK to Give up the Driver’s Seat
But This Isn’t English Class! | A CASE for Change
Teaching Comes First!
As an agriculture teacher, you are responsible for many things: making SAE visits, helping students with their CDEs, caring for the greenhouse or barn, helping your officers run the FFA chapter, heading up fundraisers, and the list goes on. All this comes second to the reason you were hired in the first place – to teach!
How interesting that, on any given day, the art and science of teaching takes a back seat to these other duties! This issue of Making a Difference will help you regain your focus as a teacher by sharing best practices from veterans in the classroom. Our goal is to help you remember why you became a teacher, and perhaps inspire you to begin really engaging your students in their own learning, rather than opting for the old lecture, review, worksheet and quiz routine. This month we’re tackling the first, and most complex, of the National Quality Program Standards – Program Design and Instruction. Read on to learn how your peers have incorporated new methods to achieve classroom success.
Chances are your students were texting on their cell phones and listening to their iPods before they walked into your classroom today. And at some point during the day, they will log on to their Facebook page, Google something or watch the latest viral video on YouTube. Students today are tech savvy, to say the least. Capitalize on their technical ability and ask them for help! Your students spend a lot more time in front of a computer than you do—let them do the driving. Learn how one teacher makes it work by reading Technology in the Classroom: Sometimes it’s OK to Give up the Driver’s Seat.
Though your students aren’t actively aware of it, by implementing disciplinary reading in agriculture courses, you are equipping them with the requisite skills to succeed in school, careers and daily life. Students who read well are able to use oral and written language skills more effectively, solve problems and analyze solutions, and develop a lifelong interest in learning and achieving. Check out But This Isn’t English Class! to discover how you can implement these methods in your classroom.
It would be wonderful to see a world where more students have the opportunity to enroll in an agricultural education program… A world where teachers are able to spend more time teaching and focusing on students and less time concerned about what they should be preparing for the next week or even the next period… A world where teachers love to teach and students love to learn… Find out if this world can truly exist by reading A CASE for Change.
Colleen Griswold, agriculture instructor at Tuscumbia High School in Missouri, changed not only her curriculum but her method of teaching after she attended the National Agriscience Teacher Ambassador Academy. Learn how the inquiry-based method works for her in this month’s Perspectives: Learning to Question and Questioning to Learn.
In this month’s LifeKnowledge Spotlight, we sat down for a Q&A session with Rebecca Carter, an agriculture instructor at Essex High School in Tappahannock, Va. She told us about her methods of facilitating balanced classroom instruction, which includes the LifeKnowledge program and e-Moments.
And finally, don’t forget to check out this month’s Question for the Profession, where National FFA LPS Specialist Nina Crutchfield asks you to reveal your tips and challenges when it comes to sharing your instructional workload with your students. What works for you? Are you too exhausted to think? Talk to your peers on the NAAE Communities of Practice message board.
Take care, and take time to enjoy the lovely spring weather. See you in April!
Sincerely,
Amber Striegel
Editor
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