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

Adventures of an Advis{HERR}: SAE's & Surveys

This student teaching internship obviously creates a lot of unique experiences for me. Some of them intentionally placed throughout the program, others occur organically as I daily progress through this journey. One of these strategically placed experiences is the an SAE visit with one of my students.

One of my first encounters with Midd-West FFA students was this past summer when I participated in several different SAE visits, you can read more about those here. I had an opportunity to host an SAE visit with one of my students that I now know much better then I did the students I met with back in the summer.

Meet Mariah. Mariah is a junior at Midd-West High School, an avid field hockey player with a big personality and bold, adventurous spirit. I appreciate Mariah's willingness to just jump in and try new things. One of them being her SAE, which she chose to do an enterprise in the area of Agriscience Research with a focus on Social Systems.

An example of Mariah's questions

Mariah is interested in determining why the students enrolled in agriculture at Midd-West High School chose to take an agriculture course. There are ten agriculture classes offered at Midd-West High School this semester, all of these students will be asked to complete the survey for Mariah's research.

While Mariah and I met, we discussed the process of ensuring all students will have access to the survey and made sure that her questions were designed to help her accomplish her goal. Mariah finalized her message to the student body so that I could post it on our school's online platform for the students to take in class.

Student responses will be complied for Mariah to determine various themes and patterns in the data. Not only will the results of Mariah's survey help her be able to progress into the state Agriscience Research competition, the data will also be beneficial for the future of the Midd-West Agriculture Program. We discussed these options and designed a timeline and action plan for her to accomplish these tasks during this meeting.

Here's Mariah's message to the students

I am anxious to see the results that Mariah gathers through this surveying and helping her break down the results!

Until the next Advis{HERR} Adventure, K. Janae

K. Janae's High Five - Open-Ended Learners

I want my classroom to be future-oriented and career-driven. That means we need application and discovery and failures and successes and room to make messes. All of that sounds like a recipe for Project-Based Learning.

I could have given you a "high ten" of all the great things about project-based learning and inquiry in the classroom, but for the sake of time, here's K. Janae's High Five on Project-Based Learning...

1. 21st Century Skills

• Project-based learning very naturally develops 21st Century Skills in its participants. Quite clearly, project-based learning enhances problem-solving and other Life and Career Skills. This teaching method also cultivates collaboration, technological, communication and other incredibly valuable and marketable 21st Century Skills that I want to see my students gain from my classroom.

2. Use and Need for Effective Questioning

• My last High Five discussed five points reflecting my readings on effective questioning, I found it interesting that much of this weeks reading credits a lot of project-based learning success to asking the right questions. Questioning can help strategically scaffold throughout the project-based learning process. Questioning can help make connections to real-life applications both in and outside of the content area. Questioning can help facilitate reflection and revision throughout the learning process.

3. Student Voice and Choice

• I love that project-based and inquiry based learning give my students total ownership on their learning experience. I love that it swings doors wide open for hands-on application, a concept that agricultural education classes do quite well, in my opinion. The discovery that happens in these instructional methods breeds student voice and student choice; I want for my students to feel as though they did the learning all by themselves. How exciting?!

4. Keep It In Context

• Project-based learning really only works when its context of what's being taught. Am I connecting the project directly to a real-life application or situation that my students will use down the road? This can be accomplished by aligning the process with goals, or essentially learning objectives. These goals can, and probably should be, student designed, in efforts to give the most ownership to the learning process. 

5. Am I Being Purposeful?

• There is a difference between doing projects and doing project-based learning. Quite simply, we can't just do the assignment to do the assignment. There should be no designing posters to design posters or PowerPoints for the sake of PowerPoints. The completion of the project should require that students are learning the material presented. 

Edutopia sums up Project-Based Learning well in this clip... (even if they kind of snagged my "high five" tagline)

Simply put, let's get our students to start thinking open-ended. Let's get our students to ask "what creates change?"

Simply put, I want my students to discover and apply and inquire in my classroom. 

A High Five From You to Me, K. Janae