Two college students receive hands-on experience while student teaching in Tucker County Schools. Kelly Guthrie is from Preston County and has been student teaching at Tucker County High School, mostly with the agriculture department.
PARSONS – Tucker County School students and staff benefit from having students teachers and the experience helps college students prepare for and experience hands-on teaching. This semester, two student teachers are in the classrooms helping students learn.
Amber Evans, daughter of Chopper and Barbie Evans, graduated from Tucker County High School and attends Davis & Elkins College. Currently, she is working with students at Tucker Valley Elementary Middle School in seventh and eighth grades.
“We have been learning about the human body,” Evans said. “It has been very fun. The eighth grade is working on some physics and they have been amazing.”
This week, Evans moved up to do student teaching at her alma mater, TCHS.
“I will be working with Shane Eakle and teach human anatomy with him,” Evans said. “At D&E, I am an exercise science and pre-physical therapy major. I switched to education and have a minor in the general science field.”
Evans said her goal upon college graduation is to stay in Tucker County and teach. She will graduate in May. Evans said student teaching gave her insight into the differences in classes.
“In one class, my students don’t want to talk and you have to work to get them involved,” Evans said. “Some kids are very involved and it is a challenge to figure out how to reach every single student to get them to their best learning abilities.”
“It is wonderful to feel like I have made a connection with every single student,” Evans said. “They know I want them to understand the information.”
“It is wonderful to feel like I have made a connection with every single student,” Evans said. “They know I want them to understand the information.”
Kelly Guthrie attends West Virginia University and is majoring in agricultural extension in education. She is from Preston County and started student teaching at Tucker County High School in the agriculture department the end of January. She said teaching in her classroom at WVU and teaching real students in high school is vastly different.
“The biggest different between classroom work and being in a high school teaching students is the level of education,” Guthrie said. “We are taught using fellow college students and in my college classroom we go through lesson plans very fast. In a real classroom, it goes much slower. What I have planned out is not always what happens because the students are at a different level. That is my biggest take away from real class experience.”
Guthrie said last week she worked with the students on a hands-on project.
“We made homemade apple pie filling. It was fun because the students were totally engrossed with the project.”
She said one of the most difficult tasks she has experiences is planning.
“Here at TCHS, students in CTE are in simulated workplaces,” Guthrie said. “That is not something I have had a lot of training about. Luckily, I attended Preston High School and we had 90 minute blocks. Also, my instructor in agriculture ran the shop like a simulated workplace and that helped.”
“I hope my students have a better mind set once I leave,” she said. “Something I have noticed is some students are very intelligent, but they don’t seem to want to put any effort into their classwork. They need to keep pushing themselves to learn. Hopefully, they have learned that hard work pays off.”
Guthrie said she is a senior and will graduate in May. After graduation she plans to work toward a master’s degree and hopes to work in a government agency such as the USDA. She said she hopes to teach after having children when they enter the school system.
