"Visit" to Central Columbia

Despite having to adjust to COVID and teaching in a pandemic, I was still ale to "visit" one of my fellow student teachers, Alyssa.

Alyssa is currently student teaching at Central Columbia and I was able to Zoom into her Agricultural Sciences I, II, and III classes. 

Overall, I was very impressed with Alyssa's presence in the classroom. In all the classes I observed she had great rapport with students. All students were greeted when they arrived, they chatted about not-school things, such as afterschool activities, sports, jobs, etc., and the environment in the classroom was clearly established. The students also respected Alyssa. It is clear that she set the expectations early on, because even when some students were starting to get off topic or distracted, Alyssa corrected it with minimal interruption to the rest of the class. I was very impressed with Alyssa's classroom management, too. Over the course of these classes, there was a lot of different personalities. Alyssa managed these personalities exceptionally, getting the most out of all her students. 

Alyssa also demonstrated great classroom instruction. While students were working on projects in electrical wiring, she made sure to move around the classroom and check in with each one. It can be challenging to manage students who are all at different points in their projects, but Alyssa clearly has a handle of this, demonstrating it during the visit today. While moving around the room, she also made sure to trouble shoot with the students when they had questions. Rather than giving the students the answers, Alyssa prompted them with questions and used scaffolding to get them to find the answer. 

All in all, the "visit" was great. Besides the previously mentioned aspects of teaching that I loved watching from Alyssa, it was also amazing to see a very close friend of mine blossom into a incredible young woman and teacher. I feel so excited for her and the things that she has accomplished, which seem to have cumulated in this student teaching experience. Alyssa is sharp, energetic, passionate about teaching, and clearly demonstrates a love for this profession. I am so proud of who she has become and even more excited to work with her as a colleague both in Ag Ed and as a close friend in the many years to come.