Setting Sail at ACES
I have seen something over this past week, some students when they see work they don't want to do it. This includes taking notes, taking notes is super important especially for those that want to move to higher education. I noticed this was a problem, so I made a learning experience of it. I had a conversation with my students, why is not taking important. I told them about the studies that show that taking notes helps to remember the material, it helps to be able to have a better understanding of the material.
The point is that at the first week of the ACES conference, setting sail and believing in your self was a huge theme. It was amazing to see how the state officers really made this theme come to life. I think that it is important for young FFA members to see these strong members being themselves, and really setting sail to their dreams.
The point is that at the first week of the ACES conference, setting sail and believing in your self was a huge theme. It was amazing to see how the state officers really made this theme come to life. I think that it is important for young FFA members to see these strong members being themselves, and really setting sail to their dreams.
The thing is, in order to set sail to be where you want to be, you need to be able to put in the work. It might starts with things that may seem to be annoying like taking notes. These small thing are what leads to the bigger and better accomplishments. These bigger and better accomplishments, will lead you to your dreams.
As an advisor, I learned that it may be important to incorporate this topic in all my classes, with all my FFA members (not just the ones that attended this weekend).
The Question: Have any of you ever taken things / topics from a conference and Incorporated a leadership lesson from it?
Is it okay to take a break from the current unit to incorporate a leadership lesson?
I used to love having a "system' (Shocker right?) where I alternated every Friday between being an SAE Friday or a Leadership Friday
ReplyDeleteHaving a Leadership Friday from a recent FFA conference just sounds awesome.
Thanks for the reflection, Britton, and sorry for my delayed reply! Thanks, also, for incorporating questions this week!
ReplyDeleteYES! to the first question. Even during National Convention, if it was a year a volunteer took the kids, we'd take breaks from classes (and same if it was a year I went, we'd do it when I got back) to watch National Officer or keynote addresses. This was a great reflective opportunity for students and a great way to think about (as Dr. Curry mentioned), the citizen piece of our jobs.
I may be biased, but I firmly believe a plan is only as good as the ways you're able to adapt from it. A rigid plan (even the best laid one) really gains you nothing if you are so bent on sticking to it that you can't be responsive to your students. You teach students, not content, after all. :-D This may be too far the other way, but I'm all for all kinds of "distractions" from the days lesson. Odds are good you'll be able to bring it back around, but even more, when you get to chase something students want to chase, you go so much further with your kids than you could on any "planned" day. Chase it. :-)
I think that is awesome that you incorporated something from ACES! I think that can help the students see the value in attending the conference even more that you found it important enough to take a 'break' in class to talk about it.
ReplyDeleteI am interested to hear how note taking changes for your students.
I think if you want to incorporate leadership go for it! That's what our job is as a teacher. I tell students that I know not all of them are going to work in a horticulture industry but all of them are going to need to be able to public speak at some point in their lives. All of them are going to need to be held responsible for their motivations. Whether that's in a job or a future family, nobody is going to want anything to do with someone who has zero direction or leadership!
ReplyDeleteStudents will usually do fill in the blank notes without causing a fuss. I'm not sure if you're doing that or not, but it does help. I find that it helps them get done the slide quicker too. I'll throw in some sections of notes where they need to answer questions or describe the term in their own words. That way it's not all fill in the blank.
How often are you having your students do things like a Think/Pair/Share or throwing in a video + reflection, or something up and moving throughout your notes? It might help motivate them. Plus having some sort of a unique review would be nice. I had students today do a fly swatter review and they mostly enjoyed it. I just threw all of the vocab we learned on a Google Slide and gave the definition to which they had to race to swat the correct vocab word. Perhaps an incentive in the form of games would be useful.
Good luck!