The Teac{HERR} Way - Through This Door

Through this door pass many dynamite PA FFA Chapter Sentinels!

I count myself privileged to get the chance to spend a day helping develop better chapter officers; to get the chance to get students excited about their leadership roles and ways that they will serve their chapter. 

With the help of two rockstar shadow teachers, I helped 14 PA FFA Chapter Sentinels develop skills in the areas of ...

Opening Ceremonies

Roles of a Chapter Sentinel

Successful arrangement of a meeting room

Self confidence

Conversation starters

Chapter recruitment

Typically, The Teac{HERR} Way is post where I reflect on my contextual lab experiences. This time around I am going to reflect on my workshop at Fall Leadership Conference. Like normal, I'll share my Gems (the good stuff), Opps (areas where I need to work on) and my Targets (my goals for next time).
Gems-

• Check-points. We used these as brain breaks for our Sentinels. After completing a few learning objectives, we paused and revisited what we had done and was coming next. But first, we took some time to get the wiggles out with some ice breaker activities like the ever-popular (and slightly competitive) human table.
• Variability. Motions to opening ceremonies, life-sized 'Memory,' role-playing, the human table... The list goes on, I tried to be intentional about consistently changing up the activities so that the 2 1/2 workshop didn't feel nearly that long.
• Engaging Environment. We started out a little slow and groggy but it didn't take long for the Sentinels to understand that my team was all about making this learning fun and rememberable. 

Opps-

• Conversation. We spent a portion of time talking about five really great questions to use when striking up a conversation with somebody new. My learner satisfaction forms revealed that this activity was super popular with the Sentinels, I wish we could have spent more time on that activity.
• Take-home. I did not prepare to send the Sentinels home with any review sheet, prize, etc. and looking back I wish I would have made up a card with the top five questions for conversation that I discussed earlier, especially seeing how that was such a popular activity.
• Review. I did not do a good job at designing an effective wrap-up activity for this workshop. A huge shout-out to my teammates for their creativity and willingness to work with me on the fly as we wrapped up with some of the extra minutes we had left over. 

Targets-

• Check-points. This is strategy I don't typically use when I'm facilitating, but I found that it played a huge role in keeping my students engaged. There is a lot of power in reviewing where we've been and where we're going. This is strategy I want to aim to use in my classroom.
• Purposeful Reflection. Similar to check points, but on a more comprehensive level, I am continuing to discover the incredible power in leading my students through purposeful reflection at the end of the day. It's good for them to think back at what was covered and equally as good for me to see what they found as most impactful.

Simply put, It is always a good day when you get the chance to get back in a room surrounded by the blue corduroy.

Simply put, I just really love FFA members and am so very excited someday get to serve them as an advisor.

Until Next Time, K. Janae