Week 1: An Introduction

After one day at Midwinter Convention and two days observing, I am even more excited to get to start my student teaching internship at Oley Valley. Midwinter Convention gave me an opportunity to reconnect with students and talk about the upcoming semester. Spending time in the classroom to observe Mr. Deysher and Mrs. Rice had me even more excited to start teaching in one week! After a small taste of what is to come in the next fifteen weeks, I am super excited to be spending it at Oley Valley.

In my past blog, I wrote about my first experience at Midwinter Convention. It was so rewarding to see the veteran members earn their Keystone Degree, as well as the first year members putting on their jackets for the first time. Oley Valley's Food Science and Meat Science teams were also recognized on stage for their awards at the National FFA Convention. What a great day to spend at Farm Show 2020!

Through observation, I got the opportunity to meet and work closely with the students. I am able to start creating some seating charts and see what activities students have already worked through. On Wednesday, I woke up to a 2 hour delay-a teacher's greatest present! After the extra bit of sleep, I had my first trip to Oley Valley Middle School. I will be teaching at the middle school for about 5 weeks during the third trimester of the school year. The students were working on a soil density activity with mason jars, soil, and water. I am pumped to get to be working with the middle schoolers, as well as the high schoolers!

As I am getting closer to starting teaching, what are some suggestions you have for me? I will be teaching class sizes ranging from 5 students to about 25 students; do you have any differing classroom management techniques to try with the class sizes? Tune in next week to see how a full week of observation and preparing for student teaching goes next week!