The anticipation and anxiety could finally be put to
rest. The numerous hours of teacher
preparation, planning an engaging content filled lesson could be put to the
test. The countless dry runs were no
more. Today was game day! As student teacher candidates each October
Penn State TeachAG is asked to facilitate FFA officer workshops at the Fall
Leadership Conference held in Altoona.
FFA chapters from all across the state attend this workshop to better
prepare their chapter officers to take on a new year and the challenges they
may encounter with the correct tools in their toolbox to make their officer
candidacy the best it can be.
Two others and I facilitated the president’s
workshop. To begin with I can’t say how
fortunate I am to have worked with such talented individuals. The experience we provided to the students
was second to none and we each brought a different personality and viewpoint to
the workshop. In the beginning we were
all still getting a feel for how this whole facilitating thing was going to
go. I mean it was our first time
teaching to a group of 27 students for an hour and a half.
Our first activity we had for the students was
either going to be successfully executed or blow up in our faces. We had seven students come up to the front of
the room and assume officer rolls within a chapter. The other students were the “members” of the
chapter. They were to conduct new
business on their upcoming banquet and sooner rather than later they were to
come to the conclusion there was no president.
They realized this quite fast, but luckily they played along with our
interest approach and made things get a little wild with no chairman. At that point I as able to scope out students
in the class who I knew did not have a problem speaking in front of a group
which would come in handy at a later activity.
As the workshop progressed our students became more
engaged and they began to give into our silly ques to inform us that they were
done with an activity we assigned to them.
As we approached an hour into our workshop we realized time was going to
be an issue. Thankfully, we had more
than enough content to teach them rather than the other way around. As facilitators we decided to continue
teaching at the rate we had been and not rush through things just for the sake
of getting them done. We carried some
very good discussion in our parliamentary procedure activity and the students
really walked away with a better knowledge about the importance of Robert’s
Rules and its use in chapter meetings.
For that reason we wanted to keep beneficial discussion throughout our
workshop and not freight train through things.
My favorite part of the lesson was when we did our
public speaking activity. The students
really enjoyed this activity and the laughter filled the room as students came
in and recited a paragraph of the FFA creed using good and/or bad public
speaking characteristics. After each
speaker the students in the audience were split into two groups to focus in on
either the good or bad traits of that speaker and write their observations down
on a big post it note. I greatly enjoyed
facilitating this part of the workshop. While it seemed like what we were doing
was silly many students were able to relate to past experiences or observations. And hone in on what makes a good public
speaker and relate to why it is important as a leader like the president to possess
these skills.
An area for improvement on my part would be
transitions. At times it seemed like one
activity did not transition well into the next.
Making that connection and segueing better into our next activity is a
point of improvement for me. I spoke
briefly about our time crunch earlier.
While it would have been nice to have presented all portions of our
lesson I think that cutting one activity out rather than rushing was the right
call. With experience and becoming more
accustomed to how long activities are going to take will fix this kink.
Overall I greatly enjoyed my day facilitating with
twenty seven awesome FFA presidents and working alongside great cohort
members. I am glad that our preparation
paid off and I got to see the end result of our FLC lesson plan succeed.
