Life Knowledge Lab

Today, I completed my Life Knowledge lesson at my cooperating center, Mifflinburg High School. I chose a lesson on agricultural career clusters, which I taught to 12th graders in an Agricultural Technology course. While there were only five students in my class (this is a small class because it, essentially, prepares program completers for the NOCTI exams), but it still proved to be challenging. This class was first period, and you could certainly tell. The students were not very motivated this morning, and it didn't help that today was the due date for their citrus orders. Needless to say, some students seemed disengaged, while others scrambled to get their money turned into Mr. Kessler. For this reason, I began my lesson about ten minutes late.

When I was finally able to begin, I started off introducing the topic of career clusters. I pointed out that many of the students were seniors, and would have the challenging task ahead of them, of choosing a career path. All but one of the students were enrolled in Tech school, 2 of which were in the nursing program and the other two were in mechanical programs. So, these students had a solid grasp on their future careers.

After introducing the topic, we played Pictionary. Each student had to choose from a bag one career cluster, then draw it on the board as the other students guessed. This was fun, and went pretty well. Although, one student did not seem very engaged. I made it a point to talk to him directly, and tried to pull him in by asking him to take a turn drawing. He seemed to enjoy it once he began drawing.

Next, I explained that particular careers fall into each career cluster, then we brainstormed a list of careers for the Power Systems cluster. After we finished this, I challenged them to identify careers that they were not interested in, as well as ones that they were. I asked them to look at the list of careers (provided by the FFA Life Knowledge website) and cross off careers that they had no interest in, and highlight ones that they did. This went pretty well, but was rushed due to my late start.

After they did this, we shared their answers. Again, the same student seemed disengaged, but I tried hard to interact with him directly and pull him into the lesson. Towards the end, I do think that he was getting into the topic more.

Finally, I handed out a worksheet, that asked them to identify three careers that they were interested in. I also asked them to begin thinking about the types of training/certification/education that might be needed to pursue this career.

Overall, I think that my lesson went well. One thing that I need to work on is questioning (as usual!) I tend to either ask a question and not allow time for the students to answer it, or I don't utilize questioning at all. I also need to work on timing my activities. While my timing seemed good today, I have to wonder if I would have ended early, had I not began late.

Despite the things that I still need to work on, there were many positives to my lesson. I feel as though the lesson itself was engaging, and I particularly enjoyed the Pictionary game (which was not on the original Life Knowledge lesson- I thought of this activity). I also think that I did a nice job working one-on-one with the students as they were working independently. I tried hard to pull in the student who wasn't engaged, and I did a nice job directing my attention toward him. I also felt very comfortable teaching today. I am not sure if this is because of the small size of the class, or because I had known a few of the students from our National Convention trip and my previous visits. Regardless, I am happy to see that I am improving in my teaching, and I am genuinely looking forward to working with the students from Mifflinburg in January!