Teac{HERR} Tales: Enhancing the School Farm, One Tree at a Time

The Forestry classes at Midd-West High School have a unique outdoor classroom. Granted to the program by the school district, these students, along with other agriculture students at Midd-West have access to a 15 acre school farm. This land is viable for planting and student committees hav
e actively sought out resources to get seeds donated.

Last year, the school farms inaugural year, students and parents put forth time to plant a corn and pumpkin crop on the school farm. This year, as the school farm moves into further phases of development, Forestry students are focusing more on environmental impacts.

During our Silviculture and Forest Ecology Unit, we focused our energy on utilizing the content learned in this unit to help invest into the land around us for future use. Our Community Based Unit of Instruction was designed to look like the outline below; however, the weather created a constraint of some form because I will unfortunately not be here to see the full project in fruition. Nonetheless, the project is off to a great start!

1. Defined Riparian Buffers
2. Identify Soil Type and Texture
3. Evaluate the Site
4. Research and Identify Tree Species
5. Identify Funding Sources
6. Order Tree Seedlings
7. Install Riparian Buffer

The Forestry students determined that the most suitable species for the riparian buffer include Graystem Dogwood, Speckled Alder, Button Bush, Red Elderberry, Viburnum, Silk
y Dogwood, Eastern White Pine and Winter Berry. All of these species have expansive root systems, do well in partial sun, wet or sandy soils and produce a fruit or nut that can help enhance the wildlife habitat.

While the students evaluated the riparian buffer site they identified other needs aside from the riparian buffer that need addressed when looking at the site from a conservation stand point. The stream access needs established infrastructure and the
current field line should be pushed back to the line of soil type change the students identified during their soil survey.

As the projects continues the Horticulture class will also have more of a prominent role as well as the school farm FFA committee.

Simply put, it's been fun getting to dive into this project with the Forestry class. I wish would be around long enough to see the fruits of my students labor, it may mean swinging back around for a visit!

Simply put, there is extreme value in designing unit like this. Students have a unique sense of buy in because of their direction connection, opportunity to work and ownership. 

Until the Next Teac{HERR} Tale, K. Janae

The Teac{HERR} Way - But Why?!

I am all about developing my students into the best version of themselves they can be. Even more than that, I'm about pushing my students. Pushing them to want to explore and discover and really use that incredible mind the Lord blessed them with. I want my classroom to be more this learning environment that is different that all other classes my students have had. I want my classroom to be a critical thinking factory.


Our contextual lab for this week helped me develop the skills to do just that. We dove into Problem-Based Learning this week, and like before, I'll share my Gems (the good stuff), Opps (areas where I need to work on) and my Targets (my goals for next time). My three targets for this lab were to Probing Questions, Be Purposeful and Explain Reasoning, Transitions. I'm sensing growth in some areas, but am fully aware that I've still got plenty of work to do.

Gems - 

• Probing Questions. It became quite clear that problem based learning is all about the questions asked. I think some of my best questions asked were ones I didn't plan for. Not only did I find that questions did well at helping me gauge where my students were at in the problem solving process, it also is great for pushing them to dig deeper.
• Check-Ins. My lesson was designed with a lot of small group work this time around. Watching back on my lab, I realized the true power of the individualized check-in's I did with each small group. Not only did it give me opportunities to clarify or help keep the group on task, it allowed me to ask some different questions to push the students to think at a deeper level.
• Class Practices. Again, sometimes the best stuff in a lesson comes out unplanned. I was impressed with the way my student was formatting his answer so I gave him a quick shout-out for his great work and asked the class to make this a "class practice." I want my students to play a role in helping to develop our classroom culture, using their current positive actions do so could be quite successful. 

Opps - 

• Variability. Typically, I consider variability one of my biggest strengths in the classroom. I love changing it up; keeping things in the classroom interesting. But I found that difficult for me to do in this lab. I was proud of my instruction materials and the design of my lesson, but wasn't satisfied with the fact that I didn't try to teach to every learning modality better.
• Directions - I think it goes without saying that direction sets are a huge struggle. I feel confident in saying that I've tried to be extra intention in planning for giving directions, and that's paid off. I feel like I've grown there. But I know there is still room for improvement, especially in efforts to be transparent with my students, so directions will re-appear in my Targets for this week.
• Stress. Stress the importance of the lesson, the importance of the problem and the importance of my students being the ones who must determine a solution. This opportunity for improvement directly relates to key concepts in problem-based learning. For PBL to be most successful, I have to create a felt-need as soon as my students walk in the door.

Targets - 

• Teach for the Modalities. I failed here this week, I have to be intentional about ensuring that I am giving due time to all my learners - auditory, visual and kinesthetic. For sure, some lessons this will be much harder to do than others, but I owe it to them.
• Direction Follow-Ups. I was given some great advice for improving my direction sets... "follow up verbal directions with written directions." Though this may not always be necessary, I am definitely going to give it a shot to hopefully help my students be most successful with the task at hand.
• Feedback and Revision. For the next time I implement PBL in my classroom, I want to be sure there's time set aside in the process for feedback and revision for the students solutions. I didn't have my lesson written for this and looking back now, it's evident how much more in-depth the solutions could have been.

Simply put, let's ask more hard questions of our students. Let's keep asking them why. 

Simply put, I want cultivate collaborators and critical thinkers in my classroom. 

Until Next Time, K. Janae