Hunting for the Answers!

 As most of you probably know by now, I am currently student teaching at Big Spring Middle School to complete my Bachelor of Science in Agricultural and Extension Education with Penn State University. We started during Farm Show week in January with our first day of observation/chaperoning during the PA FFA's Mid-Winter Convention. Now, we are five out of 15 weeks into our student teaching!!! Wow, the time is moving by super fast! Surely, I am learning a lot and using trial and error in this process to try new methods and grow in every aspect of agricultural education that I can before I have my very own classroom soon.

One of these aspects has to deal with the FFA side of things, especially the SAE projects. SAE stands for supervised agricultural experiences, which are agricultural projects that help students test out different careers within agriculture and prepare them for work and/or career readiness. These projects can vary in style and idea within reason and look a little different from what I am used to in FFA. One area of difference is the format used to keep records of progressive data and what is happening in the project from day to day, week to week, and furthermore from year to year. Most FFA chapters utilize the Agricultural Experience Tracker (AET) website for recordkeeping purposes, but this can be intimidating and challenging for middle schoolers, especially when all agricultural education students are required to do a project. 

Therefore, while in discussion with Mrs. McIntire (my cooperating teacher (CT)), she had mentioned and showed me several times a different system to help keep records in a more manageable way for middle schoolers: a Slide Show or PowerPoint presentation. She has the middle schoolers use a Google Slides template that includes a title slide, planning slide, finance slide, records/journaling slide, two picture slides, and a reflection slide. In addition to the Slides template, McIntire allows students to complete a minimum of 3 hours in their project and may work with a partner. The topics can range from taking care of their pets at home to creating a farm on a video game. McIntire tries to not only stretch the students in caring for their animals, but also help find students' passions or hobbies and how they can relate to agriculture for a project. This is an aspect of SAEs that I agreed with and started to find ways to discuss SAEs within my classes at Big Spring to help them start their own projects. Right now, students should have their planning slides completed and start to work on their projects in preparation for starting project presentations in mid-March. However, as the projects expand in depth from 6th grade into 7th and 8th grade or those students who start to show livestock at fairs under FFA, these students will start to learn the AET website setup and enter records there. 

One 8th grader's expanded SAE project that I want to highlight is based on informing others about different hunting-related information. So, I have been meeting with this student during AM WIN time to learn more about his SAE project and also help him to set up a hunting presentation for the school. He had a desire to share this hunting information with other students in the school and bring in a guest speaker to talk about more specifics of hunting. So, I have been helping the student call a Game Commissioner to come guest speak as well as help to coordinate the date, location, and AM WIN time for the presentation. In addition, I have also proposed more for his SAE with helping a 6th grader who has a similar passion for his SAE. I am currently trying to see if the 8th grader will help mentor the 6th grader in all of the hunting presentation logistics for an event as well as find a task for the 6th grader to contribute to this AM WIN presentation time to help fulfill his own SAE project. As we get closer to the presentation date, the student will continue to update his AET records on the project, keep the guest speaker informed about the event, and connect with the middle school office to go over more specifics of what the project is and how they can help reserve the room and make announcements.

Overall, this visit has been helping both of us understand what it takes to set up a presentation-related event while also expanding the possibilities of making more connections with others, even other students with similar SAE passions/goals. Plus, I, as the supervisor, am learning a lot about how to help students further their SAE projects while asking prompting questions to do so. Don't just let them say "I don't know" or give a brief/vague description of their project and call it enough in order to help them. Don't give them all the answers to their problems or challenges in their projects. Help the students find the answer on their own by using examples or prompting questions. Also, I know now how to maximize the time spent talking or visiting SAEs better. AM WIN time is super valuable, but super short in order to help students with their SAE projects. So, I needed to make sure that on each visit we focused on the important, emergent tasks at hand before anything else. Always be prepared before meeting with the student to know what those tasks are in order to be mindful of that short time frame. This means asking questions to my CT who might know the student and their expanded project more than me, knowing the progress of their records on the AET or on the Slides template, and making goals for that "visit" time in order to accomplish them. Yet, over all of this amazing advice that I have learned so far, I am still hunting for more answers in the SAE world and will continue to grow in such knowledge as I continue these SAE visits and review SAEs in my classes. I am also excited to see what every student produces and learns from their own SAE! 

Remember: never stop hunting for the answers!

Just Keeping It Veal,

Emily Jay