What I Seek in a Cooperating Center for Student Teaching

            For the Spring semester of 2024, I will be student teaching in an agricultural classroom. I have been visiting high schools around Pennsylvania to ‘shop’ different programs over the past two months. Not coming from an agricultural background nor having taken agriculture classes in high school, I didn’t know what to look for in a program nor what I wanted to get out of one when I started looking.

    From visiting ag programs and researching others online, I have narrowed down the aspects that I find essential in a cooperating center in order to have a successful student teaching experience:

1. Greenhouse 

Ideally my cooperating center will have a greenhouse as an integral asset to the agriculture program in order to provide experiential learning experiences. I have worked in a farm setting before with some greenhouse work, but would like to learn how to manage and run a greenhouse in a school setting. It would also be beneficial to have the greenhouse as a resource to use in lessons.

2. Classes Offered

In my past roles as an educator, my lessons have focused around plant science and natural resources. For my student teaching placement, it would be valuable to work with a program that has a robust plant science curriculum so I can grow beyond lessons I have taught previously. It is equally important, however, that the program offers a variety of classes. I aspire to be able to teach about plants and natural resources in new and innovative ways, but I also value the experience of teaching less familiar subjects across the spectrum of agriculture

3. Integrated Connections between Agriculture and Environmental Science

I need my cooperating teacher to share the value of the connection between agricultural and environmental education. I am in the Environmental Science option of the Agricultural and Extension Education major at Penn State. I participated in the Student Engagement in Experiential Discovery Semester (SEED) at Penn State’s Shaver’s Creek Environmental Center. From this semester, I learned how to integrate place-based learning of the surrounding environment into lesson plans and classroom curriculum. While student teaching, I need to be with a cooperating teacher who shares and values the interconnectedness of agriculture and the environment and who integrates environmental education into their lessons. 

4.  Ideally a multi-teacher program

Though I will be placed with one teacher at the school, it would be beneficial to be placed at a multi-teacher program. I think there’s a lot of value in learning from different teaching styles and ways of communicating. Though, I would spend the majority of my time with my cooperating teacher, having another ag teacher at the school would invite more viewpoints into teaching.