Community Based Unit of Instruction

The idea of creating a community based unit of instruction was very enticing to me. I love the idea of collaborating with outside resources to make an impact. When Ms. Smith and I first began looking at our units of instruction we knew right away how we wanted to showcase our community based unit of instruction through our Horticulture II course. We planned to have our students create a landscape design for our school courtyard, and that is what we are working on implementing right now.

As we began our advanced landscaping unit, I taught our students the basics of landscape design. This was a review for our students as they all took Horticulture I last year with Ms. Smith. So for our purpose we were just reviewing the basic landscape design symbols and reflecting on how to use landscape tools effectively. Once we completed our review we began our design.

Our students were tasked with designing and implementing a landscape for our school courtyard. Our school courtyard is a very large empty space that offers a lot of opportunities for our future design. Our students were instructed to conduct client interviews of our school principal, students, and staff, to gain an understanding of how our school community wanted the landscape to be used effectively. This gave our students an idea of the purpose and mission our landscape should offer to our Kennard-Dale Family.

Next our students began drawing our landscape design. As they began drawing the design we incorporated two outdoor classroom areas for learning to occur beyond the classroom walls. In addition to our two outdoor classroom, we have an amphitheater area for presentation and ceremonies to occur. We created a large center piece in the middle of our landscape to illustrate our school pride and focalization of our purpose. Lastly, we chose to create a large patio area extending from our library. This area will offer seating and dinning areas. This is essential to this area as our library is being renovated into a more modern learning area for students.

Ms. Smith and I had many partners help us with the development of our desing. Our partners to this point in design are as follows:

• Our High School Principal Heather Venne
• Our Assistant Superintendent Dr. Bickford
• Our head of Maintenance Brian  McCleary
• A local concrete contractor Keith Smith
• A local landscape architect Ann Yost

All of our partners came into our classroom to give their expertise and perspective to our design creation. We are grateful to have their support and partnership as we move forward in our landscape design.

Currently our students are placing their plant material in our design and we are working to create a budget to present to our school board for approval.

I am beyond excited to continue to work with Ms. Smith and our students to create and implement an effective purposeful landscape meeting the needs of our school community.

"When one teaches, two learn"-Robert Heinlein

~Ms. Timmons

SLO/Action Research

Student Learning Objectives (SLO) are very important to the growth and the development of our students. I think creating an SLO is essential to ensure that teachers are meeting the needs of their students to foster the growth mindset and continue in a progressive nature forward in education.

I conducted and created an SLO/Action based research assignment in Ms. Smith and I's Animal Care and Management class as we were discussing our unit of poultry. After discussing with Ms. Smith we both wanted to conduct some research on our questioning techniques of our classes. So my guiding question for my research was as follows "How do my questions affect my student understanding of content material?"

I collected data over a two week time period in our class. Over the first week, I asked general questions to our students as I was teaching content. Ms. Smith recorded the questions I was asking our students so I could do some research on my questions at the end of the week. Some examples of questions that I asked included "what" questions. From my research these are basic questions that students may answer if they are able to remember information. These are questions that simply scratch the surface of our students' understanding and does not effectively demonstrate their cognitive understanding of information.

On the second week of data collect I began to ask our students more in depth questions and questions that are higher one the Bloom's Taxonomy scale. These questions included questions such as 'why' and 'how come'. These in depth questions ensured that my students had to apply their knowledge and understanding to tell me "why".

At the end of each week I gave my students a confidence quiz for them to evaluate their confidence of the information based on their understanding of material. Were they confident in the material we were learning? In addition our students had to create 2 future test questions to illustrate to me what questions they were able to form based on their understanding.

The results that I found were incredible. As the second week came to an end my students were very confident in the content material and the questions that they posed were very good. They were able to write questions that made them think about writing a complete sentence as an answer and not just one word. I was so proud to see the growth that our students had made through this research. In addition our students did incredibly well on their poultry assessment which made me very very proud.

~Ms. Timmons

Blessed Beyond Measures

Each day I find many blessings in my life. Each day I am reminded of the greatness and the faithfulness of a blessed life that I am given. Today I was reminded of one of the greatest blessings of my life. Today marked an ending of one journey and a beginning of a new journey. Today, was the day I had to turn in my 'teacher badge' at Kennard-Dale. Today was the day I had been wishing for, for months. But as today came and went, I found myself wishing it was any day but today.

When I began this journey, I was scared to student teach. Actually I was terrified to student teach. But I knew I was given this dream for a reason and I had to see it through. And today was the day I realized why I needed to be an agriculture teacher. I have the opportunity to change lives, to bless others through my teaching. But most importantly I realized, I am the one being blessed. Our students think I am here to teach them (and I am) but they are actually teaching me. They are a blessing to me.

Throughout these past 15 weeks I have cried many times. I cried in school after a lesson went bad, I have cried to my cooperating teacher because I didn't know what the ceca does in an avian digestive system, and I have cried to Richie because I just wanted to come home. Today, I cried the entire way home, because I had to say "I'll be back soon" to Ms. Smith and our kids.

I have learned so much from Ms. Smith and our kids through this experience. I was stretched beyond my comfort zone teaching about animals that I really am afraid of (birds). I learned information I honestly never knew about the muscular system. I learned so much content just from teaching it to our students. I learned how to create various assessments and how to make learning fun through various hands on laboratory experiments (lots of food labs). The most important thing I learned was from our students. They made me realize how much I love teaching.

As I reflect on this week, and all that Ms. Smith did to make this week special for me, I am so blessed. I am thankful for my faculty family at Kennard-Dale and for all their support. My heart was over joyed with love as I received well wishes and hugs from our faculty. I am so thankful to be a part of a great faculty.

And as I read the notes that our students wrote for me, and look at the pictures from today I feel complete. I feel complete in knowing I touched a few lives and hopefully made them a little better. I feel proud. I'm proud of how far I have grown as an individual and as a teacher. I'm proud of the student that Ms. Smith and I have at Kennard-Dale and for the partnership that Ms. Smith and I have in our classroom. I feel fortunate for the forever family I have at Kennard-Dale.

As today draws to an end, I am sad and happy all the same. An experience that I at one point in time wanted to be over four months ago, I now wish it would not end and I can walk back into Ms. Smith and I's classroom with our students on Monday morning.

But, Monday will be a new day, as I finish my college career with a post internship seminar and gear up for graduation in two weeks. Monday will be a new day at Kennard-Dale and our kids will do just fine, I know, but I will be missing them like crazy and I will miss spending every day with my hero and speed walking every where with her.

As I told our students and Ms. Smith today and as I tell myself this tonight, it's going to be okay because "I'll be back soon".

"Be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead" 1 Peter 1:16

~Ms. Jenna Timmons
Kennard-Dale High School
Agricultural Education

A Veterinarian in Training

One of my favorite components of agricultural education is SAE. I love when our students have the opportunity to take their knowledge beyond the classroom and apply it to their lives. I especially love when knowledge and passions come together and our students are learning while they are having fun.

On March 11, 2016 Ms. Smith and I had the opportunity to visit our student, Lydia at her placement SAE. Lydia works with a local small animal veterinarian in Stewartstown, Pennsylvania. When Lydia first began her placement a few months ago, we were all so excited for her because her future plans include becoming a large and small veterinarian.

On our visit Lydia showed Ms. Smith and I around the hospital and mind you this was during business hours, so there were numerous furry friends in the building. Lydia showed us the patient rooms, the surgery room, various laboratory equipment including microscopes, and x-ray machines.

While we were on our visit Lydia demonstrated how a veterinarian can test samples to determine if an animal has any infections that need to be cared for.

We also had the opportunity to talk to the head veterinarian at the clinic. She gave Ms. Smith and I great news of Lydia learning and gaining veterinarian skills while working at the hospital. Lydia takes the vitals of the animals and is continuing to gain confidence in other procedures that a veterinarian must conduct.

Lydia is a great student of ours, and she is very dedicated to becoming a veterinarian. Ms. Smith and I were proud to see Lydia growing in her experience and learning numerous procedures a veterinarian must conduct each day. As this is still early in her experience Lydia has many opportunities to grow and gain responsibilities at the vet hospital. I look forward to checking in on her again and seeing all the progress she is making during her placement.

~Ms. Timmons

Life in a Science Classroom

I always enjoy being able to interact with other teachers in our building at Kennard-Dale.

I had the great opportunity to observe a science classroom with Mr. Rupp one of our science teachers. Mr. Rupp is one that I met early on at Kennard-Dale as he is a teacher that Ms. Smith and I eat lunch with.

I observed Mr. Rupp's first period AP Biology class. This was a great class to observe because Mr. Rupp was teaching about growth populations, which is something I remember from my own science experience.

As class began, Mr. Rupp lead his student in a warm up activity which was a sample population problem in which the students were given variable that they had to explain the growth pattern using an exponential population formula. I though this was a great way to begin class as it allowed Mr. Rupp to see how his students understood the information that he taught the previous day. As well as connect material from the previous day to the current lesson.

Once the warm up was over, Mr. Rupp lead his students in short discussion of populations and factors that determine the growth rate of animal populations. After the discussion Mr. Rupp showed a short 12 minute video which gave an overview of animal populations and emphasized some key words such as carrying capacity, R-value, and K-value.

So key observations I took while in Mr. Rupp's class is his personality. He is very funny and I enjoyed seeing him carrying that into his classroom. He also has a great rapport with his students. In addition, Mr. Rupp has a great ability to move around the classroom and ensure all his students are engaged.

One take away I had from Mr. Rupp's classroom was his white board that offered food for though quotes. I felt this was just a simple way to give some advice and wisdom to students.

My class period with Mr. Rupp was very enjoyable and allowed me to expand my knowledge on animal growth populations.

~Ms. Timmons

Practicing for the Job Interview

The thought of a job interview always makes me nervous, and I'm not sure why. I think I get so nervous because I don't want to make a mistake and I know the interview process is the most important process of determining my likelihood of getting a job.

On Wednesday, April 6th I had the great opportunity of meeting with Mrs. Heather Venne, our school Principal at Kennard-Dale. Of course I was nervous, but I am beyond blessed to have the experience and practice my interviewing skills.

To prepare for the interview process I completed a standard Pennsylvania teaching application as well as submitting a cover letter and a resume`. I felt prepared for my interview in which I feel confident in my abilities to answer interview questions. Mrs. Venne and I participated in a mock interview just as it would be like for real.

Mrs. Venne asked me very in depth questions that really made me think about my understanding of education and especially my philosophy of agricultural education. Some of her questions challenged me and allowed me to use my 'tool box' of knowledge to demonstrate my abilities to be an effective teacher.

I had the opportunity to explain my SLO and how I was conducting research to gain a greater understanding of meeting the needs of our students.

After my interview I had the opportunity to talk to Mrs. Venne and gain feedback on what she expects to see in a job interview. I gained valuable feedback from Mrs. Venne and I was able to leave our mock interview with a great recommendation from our Principal.

My interview went very well and made me feel very confident in my abilities to conduct professional interviews in my future.

~Ms. Timmons

Collaboration of Agricultural Educators

On Wednesday, April 13, 2016 Ms. Smith and I attend the PAAE Southeastern regional meeting at Cumberland Valley High School. I have always looked forward to attending these meetings as they offer a great source of knowledge and collaboration among agriculture teachers in our local community.

At this particular meeting I was overwhelmed by the amount of leadership that is within our agriculture community. Ms. Smith demonstrates her leadership in various ways each and every day. However, at this particular event I saw Ms. Smith take on a different leadership role in which she was in charge of running the meeting. I was very proud of her and the way she demonstrated her leadership abilities throughout the evening.

We had various speakers at our meeting, and one speaker was from the Center for Dairy Excellence. I have spoke with these individuals before about the numerous resources they have for agriculture teachers and I feel like each time they give a presentation they have something new to offer. I learned of a curriculum of resources they have including lesson plans, activitie sheets, and labratory activities all focused around the dairy industry.

In addition, I am always amazed by the newest news from the department of education regarding agriculture. It never ceases to end. One topic of interest to Ms. Smith and I was the topic of the NOCTI exam. This caught our attention as we just gave the pilot exam to a our 'completers' and these students will be taking their NOCTI exam on April 22, 2016. I still struggle with the data collection and identification of students in our CATS and PIMS data records but Ms. Smith and I are currently working with our school administration to ensure that our system is up to date.

Overall, I enjoyed the meeting with our fellow agriculture teachers and I look forward to attending the next meeting to gain more information and knowledge.

~Ms. Timmons

"Learning ignites curiosity we never even knew we had"

Interactive Laboratory Activities

As though I feel like I just began student teaching, this week marks a closing of one journey in my life. This week I concluded teaching most of my classes. As I finish out my student teaching this week, I will only be teaching one class. As I finished teaching my classes this week, I realized just how much I love teaching at Kennard-Dale and how much I love my students and staff here.

This week I conducted one of my favorite labs so far. This week in my poultry class, to conclude our unit, my students conducted an egg grading laboratory activity. This was one of my favorite lab activities because I felt as though my students really gained knowledge and understanding through this activity. At each station my students had to use their knowledge of quality grades and analyze various eggs and give them a grade. At one station, I talked shared with my students the grading process of hatching eggs. This fit perfectly in our unit as we just received hatching eggs that are in our incubator and we will be hatching them in 21 days. I connected with outside resources and was able to get a flat of 'unfit' hatching eggs from a local poultry farm. Because I had tangible eggs and could give my students actual eggs to grade I felt as though they had a greater experience and it actually 'came to life' for them.

In addition, I had one station in which my students had to grade 4 eggs based on their exterior quality as well as their interior quality. This allowed my students to really look at the eggs, and apply their knowledge that we learned from class to this activity. I was in the moment of teaching at my station I forgot to get a picture of the experience, but if you get a chance check out a 'rubber egg'. I had 3 rubber eggs and my students were amazed by these eggs. (a great egg to grade and talk about the development of eggs)

Also this week my students in Veterinary Science concluded a unit on the respiratory system. My students gave presentations on respiratory diseases as well as created a diaphragm model, using various lab resources. This was also a great lab that allowed my students to demonstrate their understanding of the respiratory system.

Also, one last excitement to share. My students are working so hard with our landscape design and the anticipation I have for the design to be complete is unreal. We have a completed design outline and now my students are adding in their planting materials. We have met with our Assistant Superintendent to discuss when the design will be started and we are continuing to work on gaining funds for our design implementation. My students had the great opportunity to interact with a local landscape architect to create a sound design.

Amazing things are happening at Kennard-Dale and I am excited to see the growth continue at Kennard-Dale. As my time comes to an end at Kennard-Dale, I am beyond thankful for this journey, and for the blessings I have gained each day of my student teaching experience.

~Ms. Timmons

"I'm blessed with everything I need. I am working hard towards everything I want. And most of all I appreciate and Thank God for what I have."

A Career and Passion Coming Together

Every day spent at Kennard-Dale is one of the greatest blessings of my life. This week offered a new blessing, a continued desire to lead, and to chase this crazy dream of teaching Ag. This week Ms. Smith and I took advantage of a great opportunity in growing as agricultural educators. On Monday, Ms. Smith and I accompanied our Assistant Superintendent, our department leader, and our co-teacher, as well as a few other individuals to visit North Harford High School, in Pylesville Maryland (which is only 15 minutes from our school).

The purpose of our visit was to explore an amazing, fully functioning Agricultural Science CTE Magnet program operating at it's fullest potential. This opportunity offered many ideas and gave us both great inspirations for Kennard-Dale as well as for my dream program.


North Harford CTE Magnet Program is a program that students must apply and be accepted in to. The program offers many three main passage ways for students to engage in agricultural activities. Students may choose between animal science, plant science, and natural resources. Regardless of what pathway students choose to take when they enter the program in 9th grade, they will all complete the program in 12th grade with a capstone research project.

Some opportunities that the program offers include a fully student driven and functional barn and livestock operation. At the school in the barn facilities, students take care of sheep, cattle, pigs and piglets, as well as rabbits and one llama. The amazing part of this, is the fact that it is all student driven. The students conduct all operations on the farm from cleaning stalls in the barn to castration and artificial insemination of their pigs. Their facility demonstrates amazing hands on activities and experiences for students.

My favorite part of the program was their plant science component. And if you know me, you know Ms. Timmons loves horticulture and any component of plant science. Plant science is my favorite agricultural entity. I LOVE LOVE LOVE, being able to plant a seed, cultivate and maintain it's life and reap the benefits of its growth at the end of its life cycle.

Currently the program has one greenhouse that is filled with 2 hydroponic systems as well as numerous annuals that have been started in their greenhouse and are growing in various planting containers.

In addition to their greenhouse, students at North Harford, plant vegetable in a terrace right outside their classroom. These vegetable are planted, grown, harvested, and cleaned by students in the horticulture class. The vegetables are then offered to the school cafeteria to be served through the lunch service. This is amazing!! I could hardly contain the excitement I had just seeing all these dang plants!! It's awesome!

Seeing this program and realizing how critical experiential learning is for our students, allowed me to walk away from North Harford with great inspirations and an even greater dream to fulfill.
I can't wait to have a horticulture program in which my students will use our greenhouse to plant flowers for annual flower sales hosted by our FFA. We will grow Poinsettia's and make wreaths for Christmas to offer to our community. We will also grow vegetables all year with our hydroponic system. In addition, my program will have raised garden beds outside to grow vegetables and flowers in. We will harvest our flowers and vegetable and offer them to those in need in our community.

In addition to our edible plant production, my future landscape students will design a space in which community members, students and facility may gather around our school and encompass the beauty of life through the use of ornamental planting materials.

My 'ideal' future agricultural program will serve our community through the use of our hands and the soil beneath our feet. My students will be difference makers, as they reach a helping hand to other. My students will be our leaders of tomorrow.

Mostly, my students will learn the importance of life, and how we must continue to learn to grow.

~Ms. Timmons

"It's a beautiful thing when a career and a passion come together"

For the Love of Horses

On March 2, 2016 Miss Smith and I got to visit one of our students and explore her Supervised Agricultural Experience. Miss Smith and I visited our student Sarah and her 7 horses. As soon as we arrived, I saw Sarah brushing one of her horses, waiting for us to get there. I could tell in that minute that Sarah has a genuine love for her horses. Sarah has 7 horses that she feeds and cares for at her home.

Now, I am not very knowledgeable when it comes to horses so I had lots of questions to ask Sarah and thankfully she was the right person to ask.

Sarah shared with me the rations that she feeds her horses and the fact that she gets up before school to go our to the barn and feed the horses before she comes to school and then feeds them in the evening when she gets home.

The best part about Sarah and her SAE is that she not only rides her horses for leisure, but she actually competes with her horses. It excites me to say that Sarah barrel races with her horses and competes in various horse races. This astounds me, that one of our students competes at high levels with her horses.

Sarah discussed with Miss Smith and I all the events that she has won with each of her horses and how she is gearing up for another season very soon. Sarah's mom has dreams for Sarah to become a professional barrel racer (that would be awesome)!!!

We also got to see the arena that Sarah has at her house that she uses to practice and train in. She told many stories of the dirt that she has tasted a few times from the arena, but was always willing to jump back in the saddle and keep racing.

Sarah is great at keeping her records in AET. When Miss Smith offers SAE work days after school, Sarah is often there to up date her AET records. Sarah is a great example of dedication and passion and I am so thankful to have been able to share in an opportunity of meeting Sarah and hearing her story! I hope to be able to see her and her horses competing the near future.

"She was unstoppable, not because she did not have failures or doubts, but because she continued on despite them." -Anonymous

~Ms. Timmons

A Bulldog for a Day

On Tuesday March 29, 2016 I had the great opportunity to visit my colleague Ms. Katie Andrews at Big Spring High School in Newville. Big Spring is very close to my home, however I was amazed at their agricultural program.

When I arrived at the school and got to Ms. Andrews first period class, she and the students were working in the greenhouse transplanting some of their vegetables they had started in trays. I, of course loved this idea and was eager to interact with Ms. Andrews first period students and lend a helping green thumb.

One component of Ms. Andrews program that I loved, was their greenhouse. While the structure itself was not overly large the components of it were amazing. Taking one look at the greenhouse, it was obvious to me that Ms. Andrews and her students spend a lot of time in this course cultivating plants. Their work and time commitment is evident in the green growth that is seen throughout the greenhouse!

As the morning continued, I followed Ms. Andrews to each of her classes. I have to give her credit for being able to jump between two different classrooms as she fills in the place of two cooperating teachers. I felt as though Ms. Andrews did a great job making each transition and being prepared to start each class.

Ms. Andrews and I both teach Introduction to Agriculture and Natural Resources through a CASE curriculum. This was interesting to see how Ms. Andrews students react and portray the curriculum compared to my students. I enjoyed observing this connection as well as talking to Ms. Andrews students and gaining their perspective on the content they are learning.

One take away that really stuck with me, was a simply white board. Ms. Andrews uses a white board in the front of her classroom as simply an assignment board (This white board is separate from the large instructional white board in the front of the room). The reason Ms. Andrews uses this board is because she finds that her students complete more of their assignments when they are able to be constantly reminded of the assignment as a result of the white board. This is a simple piece of instruction that I would like to incorporate in my future classroom, as a tool to help my students stay informed and to keep deadlines insight.

Overall, I enjoyed my visit to Big Spring. I thoroughly enjoy Ms. Andrews and her teaching style. She is a great leader and has a strong position in front of the classroom. I felt that Ms. Andrews was well respected by her students and had a great ease in her instruction.

Keep up the great work Katie!

~Ms. Timmons

Beyond the Classroom

This week was a short week at Kennard-Dale High School. Our students and I returned to school from Easter break on Wednesday, and on Friday I attended a conference at Penn State. While the week was short for me, it was still packed full of fun!

On Wednesday I began a new unit in animal care and management. I began a unit on poultry science. This is a unit of instruction that is a little out of my comfort zone as it is an animal science unit, which is not my strong point. However, I feel rather confident with the poultry unit because I have previous experience working in a layer hen poultry operation. As I began teaching this unit, I felt as though I was able to better connect to the unit because of my experience working at my relatives chicken house.

As a result of my connection to the industry I feel I am better able to convey an importance of learning this material to my students and I feel that they then have a greater understanding. I am looking forward to continue my unit of instruction on poultry. I am very excited to do numerous laboratory activities with my students and get them thoroughly involved in this unit.

As much as I enjoy being in front of the classroom, I also love the aspect of agriculture going beyond the classroom. Throughout my student teaching internship, I have found that being an agricultural educator does not end at 2:36 when the bell rings. The past few days Miss Smith and I have stayed after school to conduct officer interviews for next years officer team. In addition, on Thursday Miss Smith and I were accompanied by 5 students to attend the York County Agricultural Recognition Banquet presented by the York Country Agriculture Business Council.

At this banquet Miss Smith, myself and our students had the opportunity to engage in conversations with other agricultural educators, community members, local 4-H members and our Secretary of Agriculture Russell Redding. We also had the opportunity to listen to a great speaker who shared her agricultural experiences with us. As Miss Smith and I walked away from the banquet I think we both felt refreshed and rejuvenated from the great speaker. I was so grateful to have attended the event with Miss Smith and our students.

I love all the time that I get to share with Miss Smith and our students. They remind me each day of the potential I have and the reason I love my job!

"Don't struggle to be a better teacher than everybody else. Simply be a better teacher than you ever thought you could be."- Robert John Meehan

~Ms. Timmons