Community Based Unit of Instruction:
***PALS***
(Partners in Active Learning Support)
Lessons:
1)
Exploding Cheeseburger
2)
From Farm to Table
3)
Animal Products &
By-Products
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For the Community Based
Unit of Instruction I was able to excite my leadership class about teaching
agriculture. The students were able to
develop skills to write lessons and skills to deliver through following some of
the guidelines in the FFA PALS (Partners in Active Learning Support)
program. These students were charged
with the task of becoming true leaders by showing exemplary skills of creating
and designing instructional materials to share with middle school
students. Throughout this unit I was
responsible for communicating with Shippensburg’s high school principal to
receive permission and for connecting with the several principals of the
elementary and middle schools to schedule an appropriate time for the lesson
delivery.
To
begin this unit first we spent some time discussing what it means to be
involved in a Supervised Agriculture Experience (SAE) program and how they
could do an SAE on Agriculture Education.
Students were encouraged to utilize the online Agriculture Experience
Tracking (AET) system to record their progress with this unit. Once the leadership class was able to
understand how to utilize AET we than began to dive deeper in creating
lessons. We spent class time digesting
the components that make-up a lesson, how to plan, finding resources, and then
ultimately developing and practicing the student’s lessons.
There
are seven students enrolled in this class so there are two pairs and one trio
that make up the groups for presenting the lessons. The lesson titles that they choose were: 1)
“Food Moves from Farm to Table,” 2) “Animal By-Products,” and 3) “Exploding
Cheeseburger.” As a class we would
engage in circle group discussion to provide feedback for each lesson. This was important for the students to learn
that they should constantly be seeking to improve what they are doing. Our discussion revolved around making sure
that the content was not too dense for the audience, providing enough and
appropriate activities, school policy on candy, and working on transitions
between activities and content within the lessons. The lesson “Food Moves from Farm to Table”
the two ladies leading it are relying on the community game they led for the
Shippensburg Corn Festival with matching food products to where it came from,
they are using a coloring matching activity, and sharing a story. For the lesson on “Animal By-Products” the
two gentlemen are catching the student’s interest with giving them marshmallows
and sharing with them after they eat it that there is bone in marshmallows.
They will then transition to direct animal products such as bacon, hamburger,
steak, eggs, etc. Next they can actually
dive deeper into defining what a by-product is and can rely on the marshmallow
example. The final group will present
the lesson “Exploding Cheeseburger” and within this lesson they will color in
the parts of a cheeseburger and discuss where each part comes from. They will also be able to create a story
board that explicitly demonstrates where everything originates from.
Due
to standardized testing the visit for the lesson presentation was unable to be
scheduled until May, therefore my cooperating teacher will ensure that the
students are able to deliver the lesson at the middle school. All of the other components for this unit
were complete and I feel confident that the students in the leadership class
will deliver the lessons in a professional manner and help teach the importance
of agriculture. The students will also
be promoting the FFA by sporting their official dress and putting a “plug” into
the middle school students that the FFA is a great organization to join.
Overall
for this unit I was able to contact and communicate with multiple school
leaders on how to implement the PALS leadership lesson. We relied on community resources and
equipment through acquiring the proper materials to put together the resources. We also utilized a guest speaker who is
certified in elementary education to share with us a perspective on how to
design lessons for younger students.
Even though I am no longer physically at Shippensburg High School I will
still be in communication via email and Skype as needed with the students and
Mrs. Bier to ensure that everything goes as planned with the lessons.
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Ready... Set... Teach AG!
Saturday, April 25, 2015
Community Based Unit of Instruction
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