Inquiry Institute

The past few weeks feel like a complete blur, but one of the really cool things that we got to do was the Penn State Inquiry Institute. Jessica Grundy, Utah ag teacher, came in and taught us all about ways to integrate inquiry style teaching into our classrooms. It was really cool to see a different spin on teaching some very basic things that I plan to take into my student teaching. While I sometimes get into to this funk and do not know how to teach things creatively and this sparked a lot of ideas to spice up my units. 

One thing that I liked and appreciated was the idea and value of lab notebooks. I don't see my whole classroom being centered around lab notebooks, but I do see that playing a role in some of my units. For example, my unit assessment for small gas engines is their labs notebook and seeing this role played a different way was helpful in thinking about how I want to set my lab notebooks up. 

Another section I enjoyed was the foldable and the growing cow digestive system. I learn better when I can see something and I feel like many students do as well, so giving them something like this would be helpful. Also, using foldable in my classroom I think can and will be a fun way to add in an interactive piece and an opportunity for my students to get more reps with material. 

My favorite thing I took from this institute was the estrous party activity. I had been thinking about how I wanted to teach this and like could not find any fun ways that made sense to me, but this was a great way fun way for students to remember this. I am very excited to try this in my classroom. 



Looking into some different literacy strategies, on that really stuck out to me was games. first, I love games and may be a tad bit competitive, but so do students. Just like we discussed in 412 when we were talking about the principle of interests and how competition sparks interest. I think it is a really go way to get students involved and excited about topics. Especially, when used in the right way, games can be an extremely useful tool in the classroom. 



Comments

  1. Taylor HalbleibNovember 11, 2021 at 10:00 AM

    Hi Lacey. I also really liked the Estrous Party activity and am excited to use it in a classroom. One aspect of the party that Riley and I were talking about however would be how popping balloons might not be allowed in certain schools or around students who may have anxiety or PTSD. Just something to keep in mind so all of our students feel safe in our classrooms!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Learning Objectives

Student Teaching Connections   1. The power of planning. All of these reading are a reinforcement that planning and making that a priority will benefit us all in the long run.  2. Plan for the assessment first then determine which is the best methods for instruction. I think this will be very helpful in student teaching/unit planning and using that backwards planning approach to determine my lessons.  3. In the article about significant learning it discusses and shows this model of active learning and how it is made up experience, information & ideas, and reflective dialogue. This is an important reminder for me to make sure I have these components in my lessons, especially making sure I am intentional about fostering reflection for my students.  Connections to Other Courses   1. In 350, we did this lesson planning activity and based our plan off of our project/assessment which was a good example of backwards planning and how that can be utilized.  2. These reading talked about a f
Read more

Setting Expectations and Standing Your Ground

Image
Week 3 is in the book.. which is completely wild in my opinion.  This is was my first full 5 day week of animal science with having a short week last week. The highlight of was that we had an Estrous Party for our cow that the class named Connie. We helped Connie prepared for pregnancy, lived through the "heartbreak" of her not getting pregnant, had to help reset her cycle (aka the party), and then celebrated Connie's pregnancy. The students loved the activity, they were super engaged and I think it helped them to understand the estrous cycle a lot better.  Some things I learned from this were setting clear expectations are important and sticking to them. For example, one student wrote BYOB on their invitation which he tried to convince me it just stood for bring your own beef, so I ripped up the invitation and said it is time to start again. This students have been pushing his limits since the beginning.  Fast forward to study hall coverage late that day, I find out the
Read more

Our Students Matter

After watching the two ted talks, reading about instructional planing, and diving into different e-moments  it gave me a lot to think about in regards to student teaching and here are some of my questions: A question for my future school administrators ... How do you intentionally create a learning environment where students know they matter, feel valued, and feel heard? As a school is this mainly put on the teachers or how to you try as entire faculty to make students feel valued, because while it is a goal for all schools and teachers (I hope) it definitely can take conscious effort. A question for my cooperating teacher and university supervisor. .. Which is your favorite e-moment to use and/or which one do you use most often? Ideally, these would be rotated through and used in different times with varying needs, however, I would love to hear if there is one that you have found to be very success or that you use and why you feel that one has worked.  A question for my cohort ... How
Read more