Preparing to Teach During COVID-19

Teaching in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic is a main focus for our upcoming teachers who are now learning new ways of teaching and reaching students. Currently, education is full of unknowns, especially in agricultural education. The AEE department has six teacher candidates for Spring 2021, that will subsequently be entering their own classrooms in the Fall of 2021. 

Our upcoming teachers have many things that they are excited and nervous about. Many of these students are excited about the challenge that comes with teaching during COVID-19 and new uses of technology. They are also excited to get in the classroom. 


Candidate Kjersti Clawson says what she is excited about, “To work with students, apply everything I have learned in the past three years in the classroom, train students in CDE's, work with my hands, and be a teacher!” These teacher candidates are also nervous about the challenges of meeting expectations of students, the dependency of working with technology, and even about school being shut down again. 


The teacher candidates are doing a lot of preparation work for their teaching career beginning in the midst of a pandemic. They are learning how to incorporate more technology into the classroom like online assignments, how to use new online programs such as Google Classroom, and how to manage the classroom during a pandemic. Students are having to keep an open mind about teaching styles during this time. Candidate Kaytlin Strojek says she is personally preparing herself by, “...getting my lesson plans together and trying to think of alternate ways to run activities if I end up teaching online.” Overall it seems that our teacher candidates are excited and will be well prepared for a variety of teaching situations.



Written by Kiera Packer

Fall 2020

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